The proposed Colorado Front Range Rail will cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars yet produce no real benefits. According to the service plan negotiated with BNSF, the state expects to spend $333 million to start it plus $25 million to $35 million a year operating trains between Denver and Fort Collins.
For that the state plans just three round trips a day: one afternoon and two morning trains southbound and one morning and two afternoon trains north. Similar trains between Provo and Salt Lake City typically have about 500 seats and carry an average of 250 passengers per trip.
Front Range trains will be lucky to attract that many riders. The 63-mile drive between Fort Collins and Denver takes as little as 65 minutes but up to 110 minutes during rush hours. With six intermediate stops, Front Range trains are expected to take 108 minutes. Only two of the six daily trips would be during rush hours and trains won’t be competitive with driving for the other four trips.
If they did attract 250 passengers per trip, Front Range trains would carry 547,500 passengers a year and operating costs would average $46 to $64 per passenger. Fares will cover only a small part of that and taxpayer subsidies will be $40 to $60 per rider.
The FasTracks lesson
This is not a surprise as RTD estimated in 2008 that trains to Longmont would cost more than $60 per rider. This was far more than any other FasTracks line, which is why the Regional Transportation Distirict (RT)D deferred construction of the Northwest rail line.
FasTracks showed that rail transit almost always costs more and produces less benefits than promised. When it was on the 2004 ballot, RTD estimated FasTracks lines would cost $22 million a mile. In fact, those built to date cost $64 million per mile. This suggests Front Range Rail will likely cost much more than $333 million.
FasTracks proponents told voters trains would relieve congestion by taking 250,000 cars off the road each day. They didn’t come close.
In 2008, the Southeast (E) light rail line, which wasn’t part of FasTracks, was open and RTD was carrying more than 335,000 riders each weekday. Over the next decade, RTD spent $4 billion building the A, B, H, L, R, and W FasTracks lines, and the G line opened early in 2019. Yet, RTD carried fewer than 344,000 weekday riders in 2019, just 8,300 more than in 2008.
At most, then, FasTracks to date took about 8,000 cars off the road each weekday, which is virtually nothing in a region where people take 13 million vehicle trips per day. Not surprisingly, Denver-area traffic delays grew by 38 percent between 2008 and 2019.
With only three trips a day, Front Range trains will have no impact on congestion. Traffic counts show that Interstate 25 carries more than 80,000 vehicles per day south of Fort Collins, increasing to more than 200,000 vehicles per day in Denver while highway 287 carries 30,000 to 40,000 a day. Taking 250 cars off these roads during rush hours will not reduce traffic delays.
Worse, as of 2024 RTD lost more than 40 percent of its weekday riders. People still travel but not to the same places. Unlike bus routes, rail line can’t be easily moved when travel habits change. Front Range Rail, which would use existing tracks that don’t necessarily go where people want to go, would be no better.
FasTracks failed partly because it isn’t fast. In 2024, Denver’s light rail trains averaged just 14 miles per hour (vehicle revenue-miles per vehicle revenue-hour) while commuter trains averaged 23 miles per hour. Front Range trains would go somewhat faster than that but will still be much slower than driving.
Low-income families are especially harmed by regressive sales taxes. In 2024, only 3.7 percent of Denver-area workers earning under $25,000 a year commuted by transit. That means 96 percent of low-income people are disproportionately paying for transit rides they rarely if ever take. Since most of Front Range Rail would be paid for with sales taxes, it too would be partly built on the backs of low-income people who will rarely use it.
FasTracks was also bad for the environment. Construction generates tons of greenhouse gas emissions. These won’t be repaid by the operational savings because there are no savings. Calculations using the 2019 National Transit Database reveal that power plants that supply RTD trains with electricity emitted more greenhouse gases per passenger-mile than the average car. Diesel-powered Front Range trains will spew out even more greenhouse gases.
One hidden goal of rail transit is to justify the densification schemes of the region’s planners. The Denver Regional Council of Governments’ (DRCOG) urban-growth boundary has made Denver-area housing unaffordable to most potential homebuyers. Mid-rise and high-rise housing projects don’t make housing more affordable because such housing costs more per square foot than the single-family homes most Coloradans prefer.
Building rail transit gives cities an excuse to zone for high-density housing and to subsidize it when the market won’t support it. This makes housing less affordable because labor shortages mean that building more multifamily units that people don’t want reduces construction of new single-family homes that people want.
Buses are better
Another FasTracks lesson is that buses are better because they don’t require hundreds of millions of dollars of dedicated infrastructure for just a few trips a day. Of all FasTracks routes, the Flatiron Flyer is the fastest with the least cost overruns that did the most to relieve congestion.
Colorado currently operates six Bustang buses per day between Fort Collins and Denver. With five intermediate stops, Bustang takes only 80 minutes each way, posing a competitive threat to Front Range Rail. If Front Range Rail is built, Colorado will either stop running the Fort Collins Bustang or be forced to increase its subsidies as trains will draw some customers away from the buses.
Bustang doesn’t go through Longmont, some of whose officials remain upset that RTD hasn’t built an expensive FasTracks rail line to their city. Considering how badly FasTracks failed, they should be happy that taxpayers aren’t saddled with the high costs of another overpriced line.
RTD could provide faster, more frequent bus service between Denver and Longmont. The state could also reroute half the Bustang buses through Longmont to measure the demand for service on that route. Longmont officials, however, insist on a train, but $333 million plus $25 million to $35 million a year is a lot of public money just to satisfy the egos of a few elected officials.
With all these drawbacks, who really wants Front Range Rail? Those who would profit from constructing and operating it are certainly for it. BNSF will get improvements to its infrastructure at taxpayers’ expense.
Transit bureaucrats will also benefit. In 2024, RTD carried 39 percent fewer riders than in 2019. Though it dramatically cut bus and light-rail service, bureaucratic overhead grew by 65 percent. RTD’s business was falling apart and the people who run it were having a party.
All other taxpayers will pay the costs of Front Range Rail but get virtually no benefit. Spending hundreds of millions of dollars for just three round trips per day is a complete waste and Coloradans should save money by killing this boondoggle.
Randal O’Toole is the director of the Independence Institute’s transportation center and author of “Romance of the Rails: Why the Passenger Trains We Love Are Not the Transportation We Need.”
