For the Future of Colorado Transportation, Carefully Consider the Ballot This Week

I love studying history! From the 1860s to the 1910s, if you wanted prosperity and good things to happen for your town, you counted the days until the railroad would reach your town. Every potential city was hoping someone somewhere would build a railroad to connect it to the national railroad network. Towns like Wray, Limon, Telluride and Aspen all needed the railroad to survive or they would be a ghost town. 

Then America began to get serious about the automobile and the potential it offered. Thus, transportation in the 20th century was one of paring back and consolidating railroads side-by-side with a rapid outlay and expansion of all-weather highways. In Colorado, suburban railroads in Denver, Colorado Springs, Trinidad and  elsewhere were all but gone by 1960. Then, a trolley was a dingy anachronism compared to shiny new buses. However, in 30 years, the limits of the highway in cities across Colorado were all too apparent. In 1994, Denver began its foray back into rail transit, first with light rail and then commuter rail in 2005. 

So why are we looking to get more rail transit in Colorado? Well, we're not! Transit is great for Denver, but it's not the same thing as what the Colorado Connector (CoCo) and intercity passenger rail will offer the Front Range. Transit is by necessity made for frequent stops with a lot of traffic at peak times. Intercity passenger rail is where you board a train at a city center, ride for more than 20 or 30 minutes and disembark in a new locality. While onboard, you'll be able to stop and get a beverage or a light meal, sit down and work on your presentation or read while you watch the scenery roll past. You can be comfortable and productive while watching the traffic on I-25 creep along like usual. Board in Denver, spend the afternoon walking the Pueblo Riverwalk and then get pizza and ice cream in downtown Colorado Springs, all without a mile spent on an interstate, without Bustang or an Uber, and you arrive rested, not frazzled.

Vlogger Hyce sat down with one of the key proponents of the Colorado Connector, James Flattum, about why Colorado, and especially southern Colorado, needs the funding tied to ballot measure 7A.

Mr Flattum had this afterthought appended to the video that really summed it up well: 

For so much of the Front Range, I-25 is a single point of failure. We have done the highway widening thing to death. Over and over again across the US, they widen the highway, and because of induced demand, traffic goes right back to the way it was after a number of months. Intercity passenger trains are basic and proven backbones of balanced transportation systems across the world.
From the Capitol Corridor to the Piedmont, it’s been done in other parts of the US, and with this very grounded plan that is the opposite of pie in the sky, using existing tracks to keep capital costs down, we are positive CoCo is going to work here in Colorado as well.

If measure 7A passes, 86% of the jobs in Colorado will be accessible by passenger rail by 2040. If it fails, only Ft. Collins and Denver will be connected in the next decade by a single train running 3 times per day. Like Hyce, I don't often wade into politics. Yet this is important! This would unlock so much for Colorado! Please, my friends, watch the video above, carefully weigh the ballot measures and, if it's on your ballot in Colorado, vote yes with me on measure 7A. ⚒