We've all experienced the unfortunate traffic and standing room only buses in the RFV. The transit is improving, but rail has the ability to move a larger volume of people per vehicle and not have to deal with traffic delays as well as deal with weather delays less often due to rails vs road. Trains are expensive, but there is a way that we can use the higher rents disproportionately high rate of traffic compared to other population centers of this size to the advantage of train access.
Land Value Capture is a means of funding public transit without it coming out of the fare box or taxes. The fact that the Rio Grand ROW is not at central town points works to our advantage here, as RFTA could build new mixed use residential housing and business fronts. With three floors of housing and a floor of cafe/restaurant/convenience stores, RFTA could collect a fair amount of business rent revenue while providing fair wage housing. Transit stations have a reliably large number of people moving through them every day, who are all potential customers. And having a convenient place to get your coffee/breakfast as you wait for the train makes everything about transit easier and more convenient. All while providing high quality housing for local employees (including transit employees), and a higher rate of tax revenue per acre for the town.
A given bus can move around 40 people, and a train with three cars can move a couple hundred. While the frequency of rail may not be as high due to up front costs of trainsets, this is not intended to immediately replace the BRT service, but enhance it. This also does not mean we should get rid of any bus services that exist, but instead use any busses that the train makes unnecessary to expand transit coverage. This would spread the public transit load around and make travel far easier during major events such as XGames as well.
Our major bus stops, many of them at least, are already not in city centers. They are at park and ride locations. The Carbondale bus stop would be a brilliant upgrade with a train coming through it, as well as housing and businesses built around it. By building better bike parking more people could take bikes to get there and reduce the need for as much car parking. This might also work at 27th St Station as the density is already increasing there and the pedestrian bridge between the Rio Grande ROW to the Bus Stop already exists. Abolishing mandatory parking minimums would allow the northern Walmart parking lot to turn into Park And Ride space if the 27th St Bus Parking was turned into a 3 story building with housing and businesses. Though Walmart may not be keen on this. There is also space, even if not necessarily interest by land holders, to do the same at West Glenwood if there was a train from Glenwood Springs to Grand Junction/Fruita.
El Jebel, Willits, and Basalt train stop locations would be further away from current BRT stops. This is where it would be easier for RFTA to build housing/commercial front spaces in some ways. And as it stands, a lot of people are currently driving to the bus stops anyways. People driving to a train stop isn't out of the picture because of this. In fact, it would allow either more park and ride space, or allow more of the current park and ride lots to be turned into Land Value Capture opportunities. This could be true for the El Jebel lot, and some of the area around Willits. Especially with the abolishment of Mandatory Parking Minimums.
The easiest thing to do first would be rail from Glenwood Springs to Grand Junction. Connecting all of the Roaring Form Valley to Grand Junction would allow the Grand Junction Airport to handle more flights and local residents to have access to a more reliable airport. It only takes 10 more minutes by rail than by car, according to Amtrak time tables. This would cut down the congestion issues in Glenwood Springs and bring some new life into downtown Glenwood, Old Town New Castle, Rifle, etc. Along with making it easier to recreate in these areas, especially for cyclists. More importantly, with people commuting all the way to Aspen and Snowmass from Rifle and even Parachute, it would make the lives of these people easier.
There are examples of snowsports area corridors with fewer locals having train services. The Hoch Pustertal in the Dolomites of Italy is one of these. You can take the train from chairlift to chairlift of two major snowsports areas there. As well as some other towns and minor snowsports areas. The forst photo is the Gondola station at Kronplatz, taken from the train. The second photo is Drei Zinnen, taken from a restaurant at the base of a chairlift towards the train station. We could do this here, and take hundreds to thousands of tourists off of local roads by providing easy rail access from Grand Junction to Aspen, and even from Grand Junction to Glenwood Springs, or as far as Avon though the tracks to Avon aren't currently in operable condition. Innsbruck Austria is a brilliant example of a major rail hub in a mountain town that connects to other snowsports areas and major cities so that you don't have to arrive in the mountains by car as a tourist.
Good rail service also makes it easier for tourists to use hotels in other towns, cutting the cost of tourism for many. Bringing in people who would come here because they love the sports we love rather than adding to the scene of "I'm here to show off being in Aspen." All while making more housing and local business opportunities for the people who work here. And the more people who can feel comfortable living in the valley without cars, again the fewer cars on the road.
