Front Range Rail: you didn't really mind paying for the same thing twice right? Frustrated by the Democrats thumbing their nose at transparency and open meetings law?
Front Range Rail: you didn't really mind paying for the same thing twice right?
There was a dream once. So fragile you could barely whisper its name for fear of having it evanesce into vapor.
The dream was FasTracks passenger rail to Boulder. And to the naysayers I am here to tell you that the dream is alive!
I'm also telling you that if you're in the FasTracks district, all that money you've paid into this dream, you'll get to pay yet more to expand a network of passenger rail when the train you were promised (and, again, are paying for) still hasn't been built.
The first link below is to a summary article about a recent panel discussion the Sun hosted on Front Range Passenger Rail.
It's easy to get lost here, so let me step in real quick to help draw a distinction. There is a current effort in the legislature to charge a fee on rental cars which would pay for rail networks to the whole state--see the link to an earlier post I did if you're needing/wanting context.
This is completely separate from the Front Range Passenger Rail District (FRPR). FRPR is a taxing district made of almost entirely Front Range communities and was set up by an earlier bill. This district will study, and then charge additional sales tax in the communities under its purview in order to pay for the dream of rail service along the I-25 corridor and up to points near Boulder.
Back to the article. Besides the cavalier tone about the government taking and spending your tax money, and the failure of the FasTracks project to do anything OTHER than take your money (this tone evident in both reporter and FRPR spokesperson), I want you to take note of some of the open questions still facing FRPR. I took screenshots rather than quoting and labeled then 1 and 2 respectively for the order they appear in the article.
Many of the open questions are pretty mundane and/or uninteresting to me. What I am interested in are the first and last bullet points. In other words, what will this cost and will it get used?**
You can read what it says in the Sun article, but I wanted to get a closer sense of this by looking at what the board itself is thinking. I emailed and got a copy of a presentation from the 3/21 meeting. That is linked third below.
There are a lot of things in this presentation, too much to cover page by page, but I wanted to highlight a few things. When I took screenshots, I managed to capture the page number in the screenshot in case you wanted to follow along.
Screenshot 3 lists all the unknowns for any sort of Front Range rail line. They are categorized by what the board thinks their relative risk of adding money to the project would be (red being something that has the potential to greatly add to the cost of the project for example).
Screenshot 4 lists the estimated capital costs (machinery, etc. anything required to start up BUT NOT RUN the project), broken down by caegory. By way of comparison, our states' much-bloated budget for this year is about $40 billion. The estimated costs just for Front Range rail to start up is therefore about the same as 7.5% of our states' budget.
Let me repeat that in case you didn't yet fall out of your chair. This one rail project is 7.5% the size of our state's budget for this year.
Screenshot 5 details estimates of how the revenue for a Front Range line would compare to the estimated operating costs. Couple things to take note of here. First, in the graph I highlight in yellow the estimated revenue from tickets. Second, in the lower righthand corner, you'll note that annually the rail line would need a subsidy of an estimated $92 million once numbers stabilize.
Let me repeat that. This train will not pay for itself. Ever. You will with purchases made anywhere in the district.
Last screenshot is screenshot 6. Again, I highlight the important part in yellow. One thing the board could consider in the future is how de-TABORing (or de-Brucing) would affect their revenue stream. By their estimate here, it would lower the tax rate needed to sustain them.
But, for you the taxpayer, you should know this will come at a cost. It may lower the tax rate at the start, but you will almost surely be signing away your rights to vote on future increases. Care to wager how long the taxes will stay low?
If you care to see how the FRPR intends to sell you on this, take a look at the report from pp 32 forward. You'll see all about their surveys on messaging and the like. They're studying how to make sure to get you to part with your money in the most effective way possible.
If you feel motivated to speak up, the last bit of the Sun article says that FRPR's next meeting (where you can offer your thoughts) is on 4/26. I linked to the FRPR's meeting page fourth below if you're wanting to see how to get involved.
**I am also interested in some sense of whether or not this rail line will ever be done and at a decent price, but that's an entirely different post.
https://coloradosun.com/2024/04/11/colorado-passenger-rail-expansion/
https://coloradoaccountabilityproject.substack.com/p/yep-your-u-haul-will-help-fund-the
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-Y2SoD4L2z-3jc7zo8ZQUuOWL5TG6Hvz/view?usp=sharing
https://www.ridethefrontrange.com/board-meetings
Frustrated by the Democrats** thumbing their nose at transparency and open meetings law?
I've got some good news for you.
According to the Complete Colorado article linked below, Jon Caldara and Vanessa Rutledge (both of the Independence Institute) managed to just barely squeak an initiative in before the deadline.
I attached a screenshot of the initiative from the Secretary of State's Initiative Tracker as well as linking to the tracker below the story if you want to find it and/or read up.
My first reaction to seeing the article was "god**mn right" and it really hasn't changed since. The initiative would repeal SB 157 and return some transparency to the legislature. It would clearly tell the Democrats who run this state that they don't get to make themselves special.
I.e. that "rules for thee but not for me" is not how things ought to run here.
I will update as I hear more. More context in the story below.
**SB 157, the measure that exempts the legislature from open meetings law was, after an initial vote that included a Republican, was passed on party line votes and signed by a Democrat governor.
https://pagetwo.completecolorado.com/2024/04/11/colorado-voters-may-get-final-say-over-the-legislature-side-stepping-open-meetings/
https://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/Initiatives/titleBoard/