Coco Chanel just wanted your attention, and Coco the Clown only asked for laughs.

But “CoCo” the “Colorado Connector” — a preposterously expensive pipe dream to link up Front Range cities with a passenger rail line — is coming for your tax dollars.

Do yourself a favor and just say no.

Sure, CoCo is a cute name. And everyone loves choo-choo trains, especially under the tree on Christmas morning. But resist the urge.

However much your parents may have spent on your first electric train set, it couldn’t have come close to CoCo’s estimated $4.7 billion price tag when the project is complete. Assuming it ever is completed.

Yes, that’s billion with a “B.” And that’s before the inevitable, myriad “cost overruns” that are a defining feature of most epic public transit projects. It’s also before the project runs out of money partway through — rest assured, it will — and its schemers come back for more.

All of which vividly came to mind Friday when The Gazette reported the latest on CoCo’s progress.

The Front Range Passenger Rail District board of directors, created by the legislature to fund and run the project, has voted to refer a tax hike to the November ballot. The rail district will seek to levy a 0.33% sales tax in Front Range communities from Trinidad to Fort Collins, the proposed endpoints — someday — of the train route. The tax would raise $295 million in annual revenue to run and build out the grand design.

As noted in The Gazette’s report, the tax hike will appear on the Nov. 3 ballot in 31 cities that either would be served by the Colorado Connector or are within five miles of the line. Yet, the plan envisions a starter service that will run only between Denver and Fort Collins by 2029. It won’t expand south to Colorado Springs and Pueblo until 2032.

So, Colorado Springs and Pueblo would be getting the short end of the stick from the start. If the measure passes by a majority of votes cast across the newly created district, the two southern Colorado cities would start paying right away — without getting service for years.

And as for Trinidad — near the New Mexico border and over 85 miles south of Pueblo — it’s hard to imagine what could motivate its voters to climb aboard. An ETA for extending the rail service that far south, as well as plans for funding it, are as yet TBD.

To be precise, the Denver- Fort Collins phase of the project already has been budgeted thanks to $332 million in public funding chipped in by the Colorado Department of Transportation and Denver’s Regional Transportation District. The .33-cent sales tax hike is supposed to cover the planned expansion to Pueblo.

But the fundamental flaw underlying it all is the concept itself.

Forget the sleek, high-speed bullet trains of Europe and Japan. This one’s a slow-moving puddle jumper that will share track with lumbering coal trains. The Colorado Springs- Denver run, for example, would take a projected hour and 45 minutes — longer than it takes by car. Longer still, considering train riders would need other transportation to and from the station at each end.

It’s a boondoggle. Nobody who actually has to get somewhere on time will ride it. If the objective is to relieve bottlenecked traffic along nearby I-25, it’ll never, ever happen.

Voters would be wise to derail CoCo — before it becomes a runaway train.

Then, the state transportation department can reroute its share of the funding to where it’ll make a real difference — improving Colorado’s crowded and crumbling highways.

© 2026 The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.).
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