Denver, Colorado: Voters Approve Front Range Rail Tax to Build the Colorado Connector

Voters in the Front Range Passenger Rail District approved Ballot Issue 7A on Tuesday, creating a new sales tax to build the Colorado Connector, the long planned passenger rail line linking Fort Collins, Denver, Colorado Springs and Pueblo along the Interstate 25 corridor.

Trains magazine reported Wednesday that the measure passed with 56.35 percent of the vote, 436,785 in favor and 338,342 against, according to the state's election results website. Rocky Mountain Voice, working from the Colorado Secretary of State's count posted Wednesday morning, reported the district's combined roll-up at 453,474 yes to 368,746 no, with the state reporting the district in two pieces and Adams and Arapahoe counties counting their portions separately. Results are unofficial until counties finish counting and the state certifies them.

What the tax pays for

Issue 7A sets a 0.333 percent sales and use tax inside the rail district, about 33 cents on every 100 dollars of taxable purchases. Rocky Mountain Voice reported the tax is expected to raise an estimated 295 million dollars a year and that the measure authorizes up to 580 million dollars in debt.

The vote provides the funding to extend service south from Denver to Pueblo, Trains reported. Funding is already in place for initial service between Denver and Fort Collins. According to the delivery plan the Front Range Passenger Rail District released earlier this year, construction for full service between Fort Collins and Pueblo, including added work on the first segment and the work to make the Denver to Pueblo segment ready for passenger trains, will cost about 1.7 billion dollars, with operating costs of 40 million to 51 million dollars a year. The ballot measure does not guarantee a specific opening date.

Sal Pace, general manager of the Front Range Passenger Rail District, said in a statement on Tuesday night, "For too long, Coloradans have demanded a real answer to I-25 traffic, and that's what the Colorado Connector delivers." He added, "Now we get to work to deliver on the promise of a more prosperous, more connected Colorado."

A ballot that arrived with errors

The measure reached voters after a troubled rollout. Trains reported on October 8 that Issue 7A had been placed by mistake on about 800,000 ballots outside the district in Adams, Arapahoe, Douglas and Weld counties, although only voters who live inside the rail district were meant to receive it. County clerks were directed to count the question only for eligible district voters, and the head of an opposition group said the measure should be invalidated. A representative of the Secretary of State's office said at the time that invalidation would be up to the court system.

The district itself was narrowed by state legislation in May to 31 municipalities and the Sterling Ranch metropolitan districts, a change that local reporting linked to the ballot confusion. About 2.4 million people were eligible to vote on the measure.

The Colorado vote was the largest of 22 transit related ballot measures nationwide on Tuesday, according to the American Public Transportation Association count cited by Trains. For Front Range cities, the practical meaning is direct: shoppers inside the district will pay the new tax, and the district now has a funded path to run trains through Denver, Boulder area stops, Longmont, Loveland and Fort Collins in the north and Colorado Springs and Pueblo in the south.