Pueblo Listening Session Highlights Rail Benefits for Rural Southern Colorado

A Las Animas County commissioner voiced support for the Front Range Passenger Rail District's long-range plan at a Pueblo listening session held March 8, arguing that expanded rail service would deliver meaningful benefits to rural communities in southern Colorado well beyond the corridor's urban stops.

The session, held from 1 to 3 p.m. at the historic Pueblo Union Depot at 132 W. B Street, was one of several town hall meetings the district has scheduled along the I-25 corridor this spring. The district describes the series as outreach "designed to provide clear, factual information about the project and gather community input as planning advances." Residents, business owners, and local leaders were invited to attend, ask questions of project officials, and share feedback on local priorities.

The Pueblo stop was the second in the series. The first meeting took place February 26 in Colorado Springs, with subsequent sessions planned in Denver on March 19 from noon to 1:30 p.m. at the Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library on Welton Street, and a second Colorado Springs session on March 26 from 3:30 to 5 p.m. at the Mt. Carmel Veterans Service Center on Communication Circle.

The proposed route would run 173 miles along Colorado's Front Range, connecting Pueblo, Colorado Springs, and Fort Collins to Denver, a corridor that state transportation officials describe as containing the majority of Colorado's population. Starting in Fort Collins, the line would travel west of Interstate 25, stopping in Loveland, Longmont, and Boulder before following U.S. 36 into Denver. Southbound passengers would continue through a stop in the Lone Tree area, then Castle Rock, Colorado Springs, and finally Pueblo. The line would run on existing BNSF track.

An earlier plan to extend service south to Trinidad has been dropped. Sal Pace, the former state lawmaker and Pueblo County commissioner who leads the district, put it plainly: "That last 100 miles is expensive." Instead, Pace said the district intends to direct money toward Trinidad to help fund a new station for Amtrak's Southwest Chief, the Chicago-to-Los Angeles route that already stops in the border city.

The district's official project site lists starter service as scheduled to begin in 2029, though the timeline depends on several financial and political milestones still ahead. By early August, district leaders must decide whether to place a measure on the November ballot that would increase sales taxes along the Front Range by up to a half-cent per dollar to fund the route. Gov. Jared Polis has pushed for the measure to reach voters sooner rather than later. "We have some go, no-go inflection points coming up," Pace said.

While the ballot question will ultimately be decided by Front Range voters, the Las Animas County commissioner's remarks at the Pueblo session underscore that residents far south of the proposed route see the project as consequential for the region. Trinidad, the county seat of Las Animas County, already sits along the Southwest Chief's route, and any investment in improving that station would directly affect the area.

The Colorado General Assembly seeded this effort with a $2.5 million General Fund transfer in 2018 to develop a rail passenger service plan, following the 2017 legislative repurposing of the Colorado Southwest Chief Commission into what is now the Southwest Chief & Front Range Passenger Rail Commission. CDOT has framed the project as the transportation spine of the Front Range, intended to integrate with multimodal systems running east and west of I-25. Additional listening sessions are planned beyond those already announced.