Randy Grauberger, the Executive Director of the Southwest Chief and Front Range Passenger Rail Commission, talks about big revolutions in transportation that changed the way people moved around Colorado and even changed the face of Colorado itself. He mentions the opening of the Moffat Tunnel in 1928, the passage of the Interstate Highway Act of 1956, the opening of the Eisenhower Tunnel in 1973, and the opening of Denver International Airport in 1995. And today? Today the Passenger Rail Commission and CDOT are looking into what Grauberger thinks could be the next transportation revolution in Colorado — Front Range Passenger Rail.
The Front Range Passenger Rail project includes developing a service development plan (operating plan) and conducting environmental review so that the Colorado legislature and public can provide their input to the concept.
CDR is working with the Front Range Passenger Rail project team, providing agency coordination and stakeholder engagement services. The project itself is particularly complex — an enormous project area with lots of stakeholders, a wide range of interests, and numerous local, state, and federal agencies seeking to meet their own unique needs and goals. So, stakeholder engagement matters. CDR is seeking to ensure that the broad range of stakeholders are engaged, to include their diverse interests in the project’s decision-making.
To do this, CDR and the project team have come up with a unique approach to assure maximum efficiency in such a large and complex corridor. The approach includes creating local coalitions to link their community members’ interests to the project team and having an engagement plan that includes both in-person, traditional public involvement and innovative, technology-driven tools in order to meet people where they are and in the way that works for them.
For more information on stakeholder engagement and agency coordination on complex public projects, like the Front Range Passenger Rail, reach out to Jeffrey Range at jrange@mediate.org.