The pitted roadmap for the development of the Northwest Rail line — which was supposed to link Longmont and Boulder to Denver via commuter rail — will be reviewed Tuesday night during a Regional Transportation District board of directors study session.
The remote meeting, which starts at 5:30 p.m., will examine the history of the 119-mile FasTracks project and the stalled attempts to build the Northwest Rail, also known as an extension of the B Line, a completed portion of which connects Westminster to Union Station in Denver.
Board members are unlikely to come up with solutions or alternatives for the B Line during the study session, said Erik Davidson, newly appointed to the RTD board to represent Boulder County.
“It is my understanding that this conversation will be more about where we stand and how we got here,” Davidson said in an email. “I do not expect alternative solutions to Northwest Rail will be discussed.”
Davidson said he looks forward to working with the board, stakeholders and customers to “explore a way forward.”
The B Line was supposed to be finished by 2017 as part the 2004-voter approved FasTracks plan, funded by a .4% sales tax from communities within RTD.
Financial woes have halted the expansion of FasTracks to Longmont, whose FasTracks taxes total more than $60 million. Latest estimates project the B Line won’t be finished until at least 2050.
Delays in promised rail service have led local, state and federal officials to sharply criticize RTD. Some in Longmont have called for a full audit of the agency, pulling back local funding and legal action, said former Mayor Leona Stoecker.
Such drastic action, however, is unlikely to bring more and reliable mass transit to Longmont, Stoecker said.
“Once you get into this situation, unfortunately there is not much you can do about it.” she said.
City officials have endorsed a plan from the Front Range Passenger Rail Commission to complete a passenger rail system between Fort Collins and Pueblo that would make four stops in Longmont. The first phase of the planned route would cost $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion.
Stoecker, who finished her term as mayor a few years before the FasTracks vote, admits voters, including herself, were probably taken in by the grandiose FasTracks plan.
“It was all pie in the sky,” she said. “But that’s hindsight, it’s very easy to say those things now.”
Gov. Jared Polis in a letter in January told RTD the agency “has a statutory and ethical duty to the voters to complete FasTracks.” Polis was reacting to reports that CEO and General Manager Debra Johnson said the Northwest Rail line may no longer be feasible.
U.S Rep Joe Neguse, who represents Boulder County, in a letter sent last week also said FasTracks to Boulder and Longmont must be finished despite the financial woes faced by RTD, including lower ridership caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Despite these significant financial hurdles, the B Line expansion has been promised to taxpayers for more than 15 years now, and it is important that this project still be completed,” Neguse stated in his letter.
