The Vision
IMAGINE... a modern, world-class community, continuing to transform from a small city to a progressive metropolitan center, successfully channeling "growth" into positive "community development". Centered along the Mason Corridor, multiple modes of travel conveniently link vibrant activity centers within Fort Collins and the North Front Range region.
What is the Mason Corridor?
The Mason Corridor is a five mile north-south byway within the city of Fort Collins which extends from Cherry Street on the north to south of Harmony Road. The corridor is centered along the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway property, located a few hundred feet west of College Avenue (US 287).
The Mason Corridor includes a new bicycle and pedestrian trail as well as a planned Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system in a fixed guideway for the majority of the corridor. The BRT service will operate nearly twice as fast as auto travel along College Avenue, as well as provide high frequency service every 10 minutes. Stations will incorporate new high-quality amenities that are similar to light rail, with low floor boarding platforms, sleek new busses, next bus arrival information, and pre-pay fare machines.
The Mason Corridor will link major destinations and activity centers along the corridor including the Downtown commercial, cultural, and business centers, Colorado State University, Foothills Mall, and South College retail areas. Additionally, future regional transit connections will link to the Mason Corridor. See the North I-25 EIS site for more details.
To help clarify the history of the Mason Corridor project, it is important to note that the Fort Collins voters and City Council did approve the vision for the Mason Corridor in 1998 and 2000. In 2004, City Council adopted the Fort Collins Transportation Master Plan, which includes the construction of Mason Corridor. What wasn't approved by the voters since that time were two funding initiatives that included some funding for implementation of the Mason Corridor along with funding for a wide variety of other community-wide transportation projects (not just the Mason Corridor). Today, the funding for the Mason Corridor project is primarily from federal and state sources that are dedicated to transit system improvements. The City is slated to receive 80 percent of the total project costs from the Federal Transit Administration's Small Starts program. The remaining 20 percent of the project costs are coming from the State's SB-1 Transit program as well as local contributions provided by the City of Fort Collins and the Downtown Development Authority.
The City's contribution to the project is relatively small and will be an important tool to leverage significant capital improvements for our community - for major transportation enhancements and to stimulate local economic development, particularly at the Mason station areas. In the short-term and the long-range future, the Mason Corridor project will be a major boost to our local economy.