After more than two decades of waiting for passenger rail, Longmont residents have every reason to be skeptical.
That was the message panelists acknowledged Monday evening during a Front Range Passenger Rail town hall at the Longmont Front Range Community College campus on Miller Drive, where about 15 members of the public gathered, some of them there to ask whether the long-promised Colorado Connector, or CoCo, rail line will ever become reality.
Still, the panel — made up of former Longmont Mayor Joan Peck; Longmont City Councilmember and former Council Liaison to the Transportation Advisory Board Alex Kalkhofer; and former Longmont City Councilmember and current RTD Director for Longmont, Broomfield and Lafayette Karen Benker — argued that passenger rail now has more momentum than at any point in its history, pointing to increased collaboration among state and regional agencies, planned funding decisions and a new direct airport bus launching this fall…