The Roaring Fork Transportation Authority will consider new ways to use its railroad corridor, which extends from Glenwood Springs to Woody Creek and includes the popular Rio Grande Trail, to alleviate traffic on Highway 82 and respond to the valley’s transportation needs.
“One of the just incredibly unique and probably one of the largest assets and most valuable assets of RFTA is that … rail corridor that RFTA owns and manages on behalf of the citizens of this valley,” RFTA CEO Kurt Ravenschlag told the Transportation Coalition for the 21st Century on Sept. 4. “That corridor extends from Glenwood Springs into Aspen, [and] it’s being preserved currently for future mass transportation.”
Ravenschlag presented the public transit agency’s roadmap for the next three years at the meeting of the coalition, which was founded in the spring to study how to reduce Roaring Fork Valley traffic congestion. RFTA’s roadmap includes a 2026 transportation development plan that will look at how RFTA can better meet the valley’s transportation needs and will evaluate the efficiency and capacity of existing services; a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) extension to the Interstate 70 corridor that could occur in late 2026 or in 2027; an increase in parking capacity at park-and-ride lots throughout the valley; a higher number of BRT buses starting this winter; and a comprehensive rail-corridor plan, scheduled for 2028. The transportation authority will study how the portion of the corridor that it owns could be used for mass transit and potentially for rail, while continuing to accommodate bikes, pedestrians and e-bikes.
“The updated comprehensive rail corridor plan will revisit the original agreements and update the long-term planning for the railroad corridor,” RFTA public information officer Jamie Tatsuno told Aspen Journalism, adding that RFTA, at this stage, doesn’t expect an engineering or construction feasibility study.
RFTA holds the right-of-way from Glenwood Springs to Woody Creek, which represents 33.4 miles of the 42-mile corridor that extends to Aspen. The remainder of the corridor, from Woody Creek to Aspen, is owned by Pitkin County and, where the trail enters city limits, the city of Aspen. The RFTA-owned corridor is predominantly 100 feet wide, with some sections varying between 50 and 200 feet. The corridor includes the Rio Grande Trail, a 10-foot-wide, multiuse trail popular for walking and cycling that roughly follows the course of the Roaring Fork River. Although use counts vary depending on the location, RFTA estimates about 115,000 people use the trail each year in Carbondale — the busiest section of the trail within the transportation authority’s jurisdiction. The upper Rio Grande Trail from the Aspen Post Office to Woody Creek sees an annual average of 83,000 users, according to Pitkin County Open Space and Trails.
According to Tatsuno, the comprehensive plan will address the portion of the corridor owned by RFTA; it is not yet known if the Pitkin County or Aspen sections will also be included. Any update to the plan needs to be approved by the RFTA board, which was also part of the now-dissolved Roaring Fork Railroad Holding Authority (RFRHA) that purchased the corridor in 1997. This includes Pitkin County, Eagle County, Aspen, Glenwood Springs, Carbondale, Basalt and Snowmass Village.
The corridor is “railbanked” up to Woody Creek, amounting to 454 acres. A 1983 amendment to the National Trails System Act established “railbanking,” also known as “rail-to-trail,” to preserve railroad rights-of-way for future freight rail service while allowing the interim use of these abandoned railroad lines for trails and other modes of transportation, as long as a portion of the corridor is preserved for potential future freight use. “So, whether that be rail or dedicated bus lanes or other future modes of travel that we haven't even thought of yet, we have property preserved for that use,” Ravenschlag said.
“Did I hear correctly that we could, in fact, have rail on the rail corridor again?” coalition member Steve Wickes asked Sept. 4. “I thought that train had left the station.”
“I wouldn’t rule it out,” Ravenschlag replied. “It definitely could be a possibility primarily if we're willing to fund it ourselves. It might be challenging to obtain federal funding for such an effort, but there's examples of rail systems built around this country that were self-funded.”
Light rail has been considered several times over the past 30-40 years. The 1998 preferred alternative for Highway 82 at the entrance to Aspen, which doesn’t follow the Rio Grande Trail or the railroad corridor, includes a new highway alignment across the Marolt Open Space with a dedicated bus lane in each direction that could be turned into a light-rail corridor, but the prohibitive cost has made rail unlikely. In 2017, a 6-mile light-rail corridor from Brush Creek to Aspen was estimated to cost more than $400 million, more than twice the cost of improving BRT services.
“Forty years ago, we could have done a rail system. [The nation] had plenty of federal money available for that kind of thing, which no longer exists. That’s water under the bridge,” said coalition member Michael Kinsley. “So is there anything we're missing now? Is there anything that we’re doing that leaves behind opportunities that we’re not thinking about?”
The Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 — which created a federal transit program that, four years later, became part of the new Urban Mass Transportation Administration under the U.S. Department of Transportation — provided $375 million for transit capital projects. The Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1970 expanded federal support for mass transit by authorizing $10 billion over a 12-year period and $3.1 billion available beginning in fiscal year 1971. In 1974, Congress enacted the National Mass Transportation Assistance Act, which amended the 1964 act and authorized about $10.9 billion in grants to help states and cities not only with capital costs but with operating expenses, and it reserved funding for public transportation in rural areas.
In 1975, Aspen citizens voted to secure federal funding for a partnership with Pitkin County to build a light-rail system. By 1977, county commissioners and Aspen City Council members decided to favor bus over light rail due to cost. The 1975 referendum was followed by 20 additional ballot questions in the 1980s and 1990s, when voters were asked to weigh in on the conversion of open land to expand and realign Highway 82 and on funding for mass transit and the Rio Grande parking garage. In 1998, county voters opposed a valleywide rail system between Glenwood Springs and Aspen, while city voters supported it. The next year, Aspen residents rejected a $20 million bond to construct the light-rail system.
From rail to trail
The 42-mile railroad, which was part of the Aspen branch of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, was once used to transport silver ore and other metal and agricultural goods, as well as passengers. Train operations, which began in the 1880s, ceased between the 1960s and the mid-1990s.
In 1969, the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad transferred ownership of the upper section of the corridor — from Aspen to Woody Creek — to Pitkin County.
In 1997, RFRHA purchased the remainder of the corridor — from Woody Creek to Glenwood Springs — from the Southern Pacific Transportation Co. for $8.5 million using funding from local governments, Great Outdoors Colorado, Pitkin County Open Space and Trails, and the Colorado Department of Transportation.
In 2001, RFRHA and the Roaring Fork Transit Agency later merged to form RFTA. Only the RFTA-owned portion of the corridor is officially railbanked, but the management of Pitkin County’s section is tied to the 1997 agreement, according to Tatsuno, “as transportation first, recreation second.”
Gary Tennenbaum, director of Pitkin County Open Space and Trails, told Aspen Journalism that the county is evaluating new bicycle and pedestrian connections to the Rio Grande Trail at the Aspen Airport Business Center and Brush Creek Park and Ride.
Although it hasn’t yet been determined if the Pitkin County-owned section of the corridor would be included in the study, or what it will entail, “the county will be involved whenever RFTA undertakes any planning,” Tennenbaum said. “[But] I cannot predict what that planning will recommend for the corridor in Pitkin County managed by OST, as many stakeholders will influence the future use.”
RFTA began building the Rio Grande Trail in 2002 from Emma to Glenwood Springs and used the proceeds from the removal and sale of the old tracks to help finance the project. The trail was completed in 2008. The Woody Creek-Emma section of the trail was built and funded by the county in 2000-02, while the remaining upper section up to Aspen already existed prior to 2000. RFTA manages the trail from Glenwood Springs to Emma, Pitkin County oversees the section from Emma to Aspen; and the city of Aspen maintains the segment within city limits, beginning near Shady Lane and continuing through Rio Grande Park and the terminus at Herron Park. However, the section upvalley of Rio Grande Park, which was originally a railroad switchyard, isn’t on an alignment associated with the historic railway, according to Brian Long, trail-system manager for the city of Aspen.
In exchange for the county’s financial participation in the purchase of the corridor in 1997, the RFRHA conveyed an interim easement to Pitkin County for the portion of the trail that stretches from Emma to Woody Creek. In June, RFTA and the Pitkin County commissioners extended this interim trail easement — which was originally set to expire in 2020 — to 2050 or when a rail line is placed within the corridor, whichever comes first, after which a perpetual 20-foot-wide trail easement should be established and replace the current easement.
Although some sections of track remain between Glenwood Springs and the Wingo area in Basalt, they won’t be around much longer, because RFTA plans to begin rail salvage on the remaining tracks as soon as this fall. RFTA is reviewing the two proposals it received to decide whether it wants to move forward with one of them or rebid the rail-salvage project to encourage more participation from other qualified bidders in 2026.
“It’s important to note that the existing rail is not continuous and cannot be used for any future rail service,” Tatsuno told Aspen Journalism. “There is a common misconception that rail exists from Glenwood Springs to Aspen and that salvage efforts are eliminating the possibility of future rail. The condition of the existing infrastructure does not support that use.”