9/22/21

I-25 traffic gridlock drives Front Range passenger rail as Meow Wolf Denver opens Convergence Station

I-25, especially from Pueblo, Colorado to Fort Collins through Colorado Springs and the Denver metro, sucks at biblical proportions as does flying into Denver International Airport so growth on the Front Range is driving planners to pick up the pace on passenger rail.
The city of Colorado Springs is hiring a consultant to determine where a new train station could be built to serve a proposed Front Range rail line. Before asking for money, the state will have an operating and financial plan in place, said Spencer Dodge, Southwest Chief and Front Range Passenger Rail Commission Liaison at a meeting of the Colorado Rail Passenger Association on Friday. Jill Gaebler, a rail commission member from Colorado Springs, said the Martin Drake Power Plant site could make sense for a new train station stop since it is right on the tracks and it is already publicly owned. "We need to start being strategically thoughtful about funding a new mode of transportation now, before we have absolute gridlock," she said. [Colorado Springs, CDOT preparing for Front Range rail ahead of possible tax ask]
Combined with some $5 million it has set aside, $1 million from the State of New Mexico and a $5.6 million federal grant Amtrak is conducting track and infrastructure improvements for the Southwest Chief between Los Cerrillos, Lamy and Trinidad, Colorado.

In 2020 Game of Thrones author George RR Martin and two other New Mexico celebrities purchased the Santa Fe Southern Railroad and the depot in Lamy. Martin is a major contributor to Meow Wolf's House of Eternal Return in Santa Fe and to Omega Mart in Las Vegas, Nevada. Now, Meow Wolf Denver has opened Convergence Station in a 90,000-square-foot building at 1338 First St. Meow Wolf even has plans to go international.
More than 110,000 tickets have been snapped up in Denver, with all weekend days sold through October and most weekday tickets sold for the first two weeks of operation. Interest in the other locations doesn’t seem to be easing, either. In Santa Fe, the House of Eternal Return has sold more than 256,000 tickets since reopening in March, and at Omega Mart, 600,000 tickets have been purchased since its February opening. [Meow Wolf Denver: Creativity on a fast track]
It's not in President Joe Biden's rail plan but if someday Amtrak, Colorado's Democratic congressional delegation and the Southwest Chief & Front Range Passenger Rail Commission connect the Chief at Pueblo or Trinidad to the Empire Builder at Shelby, Montana through Denver and Cheyenne, Wyoming it would intersect the North Coast Hiawatha at Laurel or Billings, Montana. 

Mineral County, Montana could be the seventeenth to join the Big Sky Rail Authority.
Efforts to restore passenger rail across Montana’s southern tier of counties has been included in Wyoming’s own statewide rail plan for 2021, which could include southern links to Denver or Salt Lake City if fully established. “Wyoming state or local officials will partner with Montana agencies as appropriate to create a regional base of support for expanding passenger rail service on corridors that serve Wyoming and Montana,” the Wyoming Statewide Rail Plan suggests. [Wyoming plan notes Montana rail authority’s push to restore southern passenger route]
Learn more about Convergence Station at the Denver Post.

ip photo: the Southwest Chief chugs westward into Trinidad.
Posted by at
piled in , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)