Originally posted at Complete Colorado / Page 2:
Specially reserved is one seat for a director appointed by the Governor from “a county, city and county, or municipality through which light rail was planned” as part of the existing Regional Transportation District’s (RTD) FasTracks rail system but “has not been constructed.”
RTD, which includes metro Denver and Boulder County, was supposed to extend rail service to Boulder, where Governor Polis lives, and on to Longmont. That part of the system has been shelved in part due to costs and FasTracks revenue failures, and in part due to difficulties making an agreement with the freight rail companies that own the right of way needed.
El Paso County Commissioner Holly Williams believes Polis is trying to get the rail service RTD has refused to extend to Boulder paid for by the taxpayers of the new District, rather than by RTD taxpayers.
“About two months before the Front Range Passenger Rail District bill was introduced, Governor Polis went in front of the RTD board and spent fifteen minutes telling them how angry he was at them because the route from Denver to Boulder had not been built, and then this bill gets introduced,” said Williams in an interview with Complete Colorado Tuesday. “[The Southwest Chief and Front Range Passenger Rail Commission, the predecessor to the District] voted the preferred route would go to downtown Denver and then to Boulder and Longmont, which means our taxes from Colorado Springs would be building that RTD route.”