‘CoCo’ chosen as name for proposed Colorado Front Range rail service

This story was first published at Colorado Newsline.

DENVER | Colorado’s Front Range Passenger Rail service will be named Colorado Connector, or CoCo, Gov. Jared Polis announced Monday. 

“Colorado Connector describes very well what the service does,” Polis said in a virtual press conference. “It really connects our state from north to south along the major population centers.”

The Front Range Passenger Rail District invited members of the public to vote to determine what the proposed service would be named. More than 25,000 Coloradans participated. The top contenders were Colorado Connector, or CoCo, and Front Range Express Destinations, or FRED.

The rail district, made up of all or part of 13 counties along the Interstate 25 corridor, was created by the state Legislature in 2021 to oversee the planning, construction and operation of the passenger line. The district’s preferred route envisions nine stops between Fort Collins and Pueblo, including Denver and Colorado Springs, with potential future extensions north to Cheyenne or south to Trinidad and New Mexico.

Sal Pace, the rail district’s general manager, told lawmakers earlier this year that the district would “aim for a 2026 ballot measure” to fund the planned service through a sales tax increase. The district’s 17-member board opted against referring a tax measure to the 2024 ballot, but polling it conducted that year showed strong support for a 0.5% sales tax increase.

Polis said it is still unclear if a ballot measure to fund the service will be on the November ballot. He said “a lot of planning and work” is going into finalizing a measure. 

If a ballot measure passes this year, the first phase of the Front Range Passenger Rail service between Denver and Fort Collins would launch within three years, Polis said. The full service would launch within five years. 

Aside from several stops on two long-haul Amtrak routes — the California Zephyr and the Southwest Chief — Colorado hasn’t had regular intercity passenger rail service since the 1970s. The state has also partnered with Amtrak to revive the ski train to Winter Park for several months a year, and there are plans to support daily rail service between Denver and Granby, slated to launch in November, with future expansion planned as far as Steamboat Springs.