Voters approving tax for passenger rail extension

Residents along the Front Range are approving the addition of a third-of-a-cent sales tax to pay for a fourth daily passenger rail trip between Denver and Fort Collins and extend service south of Denver to Colorado Springs and Pueblo.

In early returns as of 8 p.m. Tuesday, Ballot Issue 7A was leading with 385,327 votes, or 56.14% of voters, approving the tax and 301,018 votes, or 43.86%, opposed.

Already approved and funded in part by the Colorado Department of Transportation and the Regional Transportation District, the Colorado Connector rail line, or CoCo, will provide three daily round trips linking the Union Station transit hub in Denver to stations in Westminster, Broomfield, Louisville, Boulder, Longmont, Loveland and Fort Collins starting in 2029. 

Passage of the ballot issue will add a fourth trip north, as well as two daily round trips south from Union Station to Sterling Ranch, Littleton, Colorado Springs and Pueblo.

According to an existing exemption in state law, the 0.333% tax, which amounts to 33 cents on each $100 spent, won’t be assessed on the purchase of food, gasoline, residential electricity and gas, prescription drugs or medical supplies.

Voters in the six-county Regional Transportation District voted in 2004 to fund the proposed FasTracks rail system that was to include commuter-rail service between Denver, Boulder and Longmont. Originally envisioned to cost $4.7 billion and to be completed in 2017, the budget grew to $6.5 billion while projected revenues dropped to $4.1 billion. The project was not expected to be finished until after 2050. Contributing to the project’s woes were the Great Recession and higher-than-expected access fees for using BNSF Railway Co. rail lines.

Opponents of Ballot Issue 7A saw FasTracks’ failure to deliver to Boulder and Longmont as a broken promise that would be repeated with the new tax, and their advertising depicted another “phantom train” that would never arrive.

This time, Front Range Passenger Rail District officials say, they have proposed a financing model and rail access agreement with BNSF in which the railroad will receive 50% greater annual access fees if the passenger service meets on-time metrics.

BNSF shares its lines with commuter rail services in other cities, including the long-established Metra regional service in the Chicago area.  

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