Colorado voters along the Front Range could decide on whether to approve a new tax this year to help fund passenger rail service between Fort Collins and Pueblo.

Sal Pace, the general manager of the state’s Front Range Passenger Rail District, told lawmakers on Tuesday that the agency wants to get prepared for a ballot measure, whether it happens this year or later on. It is a process that will require a lot of public engagement and feedback.

It’s the agency’s “statutory mandate to receive public input on our plans before we refer a ballot measure,” he said during a hearing with the state Legislature’s Transportation and Energy Committee. “It’s a results-oriented approach that prioritizes milestones and evaluation metrics before referring a potential ballot question.”

Image

The rail district was created by the Legislature in 2021 to oversee the planning, financing, construction and eventual operation of a passenger rail service along the Interstate 25 corridor. The body has the power to refer a tax to voters, but it decided not to in 2024, partially due to scant details at the time on how the service would work. Polling from that year, however, showed strong support for a 0.5 percent sales tax increase.

Now, the service development plan is nearly complete, and a finalized operating plan and station plans are set to be drafted soon. That gives voters a better idea of what their tax dollars would pay for.

“When I was hired as the general manager of the Front Range Passenger Rail District — I think two months and 20 days ago — was with the direction to aim for a 2026 ballot measure,” Pace said. Pace is a former state representative and longtime rail advocate.

He said there is a multi-phased approach to whether the agency will put a question on the ballot. If it doesn’t meet its goals by the end of each phase, it will not continue to the next one.

“So we’ll have two inflection points in our process over the next 10 months to determine whether or not to continue to move forward,” he said. The first phase will focus on ensuring technical and financial readiness for service and the second phase will focus on engagement.

The rail district, which encompasses all or part of 13 counties along the I-25 corridor, will launch an online platform this month to get public feedback on its plans, Pace said, and it plans to host 30 town halls by the end of April. The agency is also exploring branding options. A mocked-up image from the slideshow Tuesday, for example, shows an orange train with “Broncos Express” emblazoned on the side, zooming past snowcapped mountains.

The agency plans to ask for a bill during the legislative session that will redefine the district to align with the planned route, which was not certain in 2021.