There is a Douglas County stop on Colorado's passenger rail map — and it is the only one.
Colorado Connector, the intercity service being developed by the Front Range Passenger Rail District, lists a Sterling Ranch station among the 12 communities on a roughly 190-mile line from Fort Collins to Pueblo, with Denver Union Station at the center.
Under a law signed in May, it is also named in the taxing district that would vote on paying for it.
The headline number on the project's marketing — first trains by 2029 — is not the number that matters here. The one that does is Nov. 3, when voters inside the district decide on the tax that would pay for the leg reaching Douglas County. The District's board referred that question on Aug. 28.
The 2029 trains don't come south
The Starter Service launching in 2029 is three daily round trips between Denver and Fort Collins, stopping at eight stations: Denver Union Station, Westminster, Broomfield, Louisville, Boulder, Longmont, Loveland and Fort Collins.
None of them are in Douglas County.
Service south of Denver — Littleton, Sterling Ranch, Colorado Springs, Pueblo — comes in later phases. The District's own language is that service "grows in phases: extending south to Colorado Springs and Pueblo and adding more trips over a roughly 20-year horizon."
The board referred it. It is on the November ballot.
Updated Aug. 31, 2026; resolution number added Sept. 15. On Friday, Aug. 28, the Front Range Passenger Rail District's board voted 14 to 1 to refer the sales tax to the November ballot — adopting Resolution 2026-32, per the Notice of Election the District has since posted on its own site. The lone no vote was board member Cory Applegate, who represents the Pikes Peak Area Council of Governments. The question now goes to voters inside the district on Nov. 3, 2026 — and in Douglas County, as explained below, that includes Sterling Ranch.
Update, Oct. 9, 2026: Issue 7A is printed on every Douglas County ballot anyway. Per Douglas County Elections' On the Ballot page, the boundary map the rail district provided showed the entire county inside the district; legislation passed in 2026 changed those boundaries, and "only votes from voters within the updated rail district boundaries will be counted on Issue 7A." Voters do not need a new ballot, and voting on 7A or leaving it blank does not affect the rest of the ballot.
The District's Financing Plan, dated Aug. 24, is the document behind the vote — published to satisfy a statutory requirement under C.R.S. 32-22-109(1)(a) that the District show how it intends to pay for the thing. Its numbers:
| Proposed sales and use tax | 0.333% — one-third of a penny, or 33¢ on a $100 purchase |
| First full year of collections (2028) | $295 million |
| Collections would begin | July 2027 |
| Debt authorized by the ballot issue | up to $580 million issued, $785 million maximum repayment |
The board met Friday, Aug. 28 at the Transportation Technology Center northeast of Pueblo — a federal railroad equipment testing facility — and referred the measure. The District is aiming to run service from Denver south to Pueblo by 2032 if voters approve it.
Who is inside the district
Under current law, Sterling Ranch's metropolitan districts are inside the district by name.
Senate Bill 26-172, signed May 26, 2026, repealed the old district boundary and replaced it with a list. The old boundary swept in every part of Douglas County inside a metropolitan planning organization. The new one names 31 municipalities. Castle Rock, Parker, Lone Tree, Castle Pines and Larkspur are not among them. Littleton is, and the City of Littleton says its city limits are in three counties, including Douglas.
What it does name, specifically, is this:
"THE ENTIRETY OF STERLING RANCH COLORADO METROPOLITAN DISTRICT NUMBERS ONE THROUGH SEVEN AND ANY METROPOLITAN DISTRICT ADDED TO THE STERLING RANCH PLANNED DEVELOPMENT IN UNINCORPORATED DOUGLAS COUNTY."
So the county's status going into November:
| In the taxing district? | |
|---|---|
| Sterling Ranch | Yes — named in statute |
| Littleton, including the part of its city limits in Douglas County | Yes — on the list of 31 |
| Castle Rock, Parker, Lone Tree, Castle Pines, Larkspur | No — not on the list of 31 |
| Highlands Ranch, Roxborough and other unincorporated areas | Not named in the statute |
Two doors stay open. A municipality can join later if its governing body approves — and, where TABOR requires it, its voters do too. And the District's board can add a metropolitan district that sits outside any municipality, with that district's consent.
Where the widely repeated "five miles" figure comes from: it was one of the criteria used to draw the map, not a rule about who pays. Lawmakers included a municipality if roughly 20% of its population sat within five miles of a planned stop. Once the map was drawn, it became a fixed list in statute. The boundary is that list, not a distance measured from a station.
What the tax does and doesn't buy
It doesn't buy the 2029 trains. That first phase is $332 million, already funded — rental-car fee revenue through the Colorado Transportation Investment Office, oil and gas production fee revenue through the Clean Transit Enterprise, and roughly $156 million from RTD. Denver–Fort Collins runs in 2029 whether the tax passes or not.
It buys the phase that reaches us. Phase 2 is $1.77 billion and contingent on voter approval. It would add stations at Littleton, Sterling Ranch, North Colorado Springs, Colorado Springs and Pueblo, extending service south with two daily round trips by mid-2032 — within five years of the tax taking effect.
Phases 3 through 5 add frequency over a roughly 20-year horizon at $2.7 billion, funded from accumulated revenue rather than new borrowing.
Per the Financing Plan, the phase that includes the Sterling Ranch station is contingent on voter approval. The 2029 starter service runs either way.
Dollars that would come back
The District's Local Return program would send money back to communities that host a station, annually for 25 years, scaled to population — from $1.5 million a year for a community under 20,000 up to $9 million for one over 700,000. It is meant for station-area work outside the railroad right-of-way: parking, bike and pedestrian access, transit connections. The Financing Plan sets aside $51.3 million a year for it starting in 2029.
The plan describes the program as open to municipalities that opt in. Sterling Ranch is a metropolitan district in unincorporated Douglas County, not a municipality — and the published documents don't say how Local Return would apply to it. That is an open question. Local Return is the money that would fund parking and pedestrian connections around a station, as distinct from the platform itself.
Track work in Douglas County, but only one platform
The Delivery Plan's later-phase construction lists include several Douglas County items: a second track south of Sedalia, double track from Sedalia to Castle Rock, a Larkspur siding, and double track from Larkspur to Palmer Lake.
Those are track improvements, not stations. Sterling Ranch is the only Douglas County stop on the station list.
We're tracking this alongside the county's "3 to 5" commissioner measure, the Castle Pines annexation amendments and the DCSD mill levy override, and we'll update this page as the campaign develops.
Where the station would go, and what it would connect
The project places the station near US-85 (Santa Fe Drive) and Titan Road, calling it a "key southern gateway." The precise platform location is still under study.
Per the project, the station area would serve:
- Sterling Ranch — the master-planned community immediately west
- Lockheed Martin Space Systems — its worldwide headquarters, which the project describes as one of the largest Tier 1 employers in Colorado
- Roxborough, Highlands Ranch and Castle Rock, plus the broader county
It also names connections that already exist or are being built: Douglas County's Link on Demand on-demand transit service now rolling out countywide, Chatfield State Park, the Highline Canal, the Sterling Ranch trail system, and the planned Zebulon Regional Sports Complex, a $100 million project already under way in Sterling Ranch.
Whose tracks
Mostly existing freight rail, which is the project's central claim to being deliverable.
North of Denver the route runs on BNSF, where the State has signed a term sheet for a 25-year access agreement, with a formal agreement targeted for 2026. South of Denver — the Douglas County stretch — it would follow the Consolidated Main Line and the "Joint Line," jointly owned by Union Pacific and BNSF, down through Colorado Springs to Pueblo.
What we'd want answered
- How Local Return applies to Sterling Ranch, which is a metropolitan district rather than a municipality
- Whether any Douglas County municipality moves to join the district — the statute allows it
- Whether Sterling Ranch residents get a subdistrict question too. SB26-172 lets the District create subdistricts that can refer their own taxes for station-area work, decided only by that subdistrict's voters
- Where exactly the platform lands near US-85 and Titan
- What park-and-ride capacity is planned, since the project explicitly frames the site as a regional park-and-ride opportunity
- How Link on Demand would feed it
We'll update this page as those firm up.
Sources: the Front Range Passenger Rail District's Draft Financing Plan dated Aug. 24, 2026 (tax rate, $295M first-full-year receipts, July 2027 collection start, phase capital costs, debt limits, Local Return set-aside); the District's Final Delivery Plan, approved by its board July 31, 2026 (phasing, station list, Local Return population tiers, southern corridor track work); coloradoconnector.com station, plan and FAQ pages; and the District's Aug. 3, 2026 press release announcing the Aug. 28 board meeting. The Aug. 28 referral vote and its 14-1 margin are as reported by Colorado Public Radio, The Colorado Sun and KKTV. Boundary and subdistrict provisions are from Senate Bill 26-172, signed May 26, 2026 (Session Laws Chapter 153), amending C.R.S. 32-22-103, 32-22-104, 32-22-106 and 32-22-109. All reviewed Aug. 26, 2026. Colorado Connector is operated by the Front Range Passenger Rail District.