County faces 21st century

Transportation: Rails and parallel roads

By Cherry Sokoloski
North Forty News

With ever-increasing population along the Front Range, cities and counties spend a lot of time--and money--figuring out how to get people from Point A to Point B.

This is especially important because of a transportation pattern that has developed in recent years: people "drive 'til they qualify" for a home mortgage, and they're commuting further and further to work. They also travel for other reasons. People may live in one community, but they use the entire region for their work, shopping and medical needs.

Consider these figures showing how many people leave their home communities for work: Fort Collins, 17 percent; Greeley, 30 percent; and Loveland, a whopping 45 percent.

Not only are residents becoming "regional citizens," but there will be many more of these citizens by the year 2025. Population projections, according to North Front Range transportation planning manager Suzette Thieman, call for the combined population of Larimer and Weld Counties to grow from 384,000 in 2000 to 620,000 in 2025. One area expecting tremendous growth is southwest Weld County, near the communities of Frederick, Firestone and Dacono.

Given these facts, what kind of transportation improvements are planners considering in the next 10 to 20 years? How will officials make commutes easier, without bringing Interstate 25 to a standstill? A 1999 study projected gridlock along the entire length of I-25 between Fort Collins and Denver by 2020, if improvements aren't made.

I-25 is currently under reconstruction from Longmont south to Denver. However, funding has not been secured for widening the interstate north to Fort Collins. That will likely require funds from the Colorado Department of Transportation as well as a rural transportation authority.

Parallel roads in plan

Two major approaches are being considered to take pressure off I-25: development of parallel roadways and passenger rail.

"I-25 was never meant for local trips," said Glenn Vaad, chair of the North Front Range transportation planning council. The council's current focus, he noted, is to improve connections among communities in northern Colorado that are separate from I-25. Only 12 percent of this area's workers commute to the Denver metro area, Vaad said.

Several connecting roadways are being considered for improvement. They include Harmony Road, east of I-25; an extension of State Highway 392, west of I-25; and the Two Rivers Parkway, a diagonal road connecting east Fort Collins with Windsor, west Greeley and Platteville, eventually tying in with U.S. Highway 85.

Another high priority is widening U.S. Highway 287 in north Fort Collins, from State Highway 1 to the LaPorte bypass.

Passenger rail on board

Passenger rail seems to be moving closer to reality. Vicky McLane, policy and programs manager for the North Front Range council, sees the future of rail in northern Colorado as "bright."

The council is working closely with Denver, which plans to bring passenger rail as far north as State Highway 7. Most likely, McLane said, a rail system will parallel I-25, splitting at U.S. Highway 34 into two spurs. One branch will head to Fort Collins and one to Greeley.

A Fort Lupton company, Colorado Rail Car, manufactures an intriguing commuter rail system that's being considered by Front Range planners. It features self-propelled rail cars that can be driven from either end of the train.

McLane hopes that work on a northern Colorado passenger rail system will begin by 2015. For both roadways and rail, however, funding will be a major challenge in the next several years, as Colorado and the country recover from recession.

Funding mechanisms for transportation projects are changing, too. For the past several years, the federal government has been tightening its purse strings, leaving states and local governments paying more of the tab for new roads and alternative transportation.

One local funding mechanism is the rural transportation authority, which would allow people in a certain area - such as the northern Front Range --to pay for their own transportation improvements through taxes.