Logan Harrison, right, loads his bicycle on the rack on the FLEX bus on Friday at the north transit center in Loveland. Earlier this week, COLT received a $3.9 million federal grant to add a building to the site. (Jenny Sparks/Loveland Reporter-Herald)
Amid the gloom and doom of this week’s 2025 budget talks was some good news for City of Loveland Transit (COLT). On Tuesday, the Federal Transportation Administration awarded Loveland a $3.9 million grant to complete the second phase of the new transit center on West 37th Avenue, a development that Loveland Mayor Jacki Marsh called a “game changer.”
“We want to encourage people to use the transit,” Marsh said. “This allows us to build an actual building, which will have, first of all, bathrooms. But it will also have services, there will be resources there to help people. It will be air-conditioned.”
A permanent transit hub has been on COLT’s wish list since 2016, but funding to build it has proved elusive over the years. In 2022, COLT finally secured $2.4 million in federal funding for the project, which was enough to lay the groundwork.
The new but not-quite-complete transit center at 350 W. 37th St. opened to the public in January, with an 88-space parking lot, a bus island with covered benches, pedestrian walkways and landscaping. Water and electrical infrastructure was also installed for future phases of the project.
Getting the second part of the funding proved almost as elusive as the first, until Marsh and some of her council colleagues were able to talk to federal transportation officials about Loveland transit during the recent National League of Cities meeting in Washington, D.C.
“NLC is a place where you can connect with some of the decision-makers, some of the people that have the power and influence,” Marsh said. “…But it’s everybody working together. If it weren’t for Candice and Mark (Jackson), then we’d never get the application across their desks.”
The new federal funding will cover the cost to construct a permanent building on the property, with restrooms, waiting areas, additional security cameras and lighting. A COLT staff member will also be on site to sell tickets and provide customer service, according to Candice Folkers, the city’s transit manager.
“It won’t be a giant building, because it’s a small space in that island,” she said. “But it will probably be two stories.”
The transit grant wasn’t the only good news for Loveland from the FTA. The city of Greeley is poised to receive $3.5 million in federal funding for new compressed natural gas (CNG) buses that will provide service along U.S. 34 all the way to Loveland.
“That will be a good connection, straight down U.S. 34, from UNC to the new hub at I-25,” Folkers said. “That will connect you to the COLT system and to Bustang, and you can go pretty much anywhere you want from there.”
For Marsh, the Greeley award was the cherry on top of the transit grant news.
“It just gets better and better. I’m ready to jump up and down for joy, and I don’t do that often,” she said. “Loveland is growing up. We’re getting a real transit center and we’re getting a connection to Greeley.”
Echoing Folkers, the mayor said that the new grants will open up possibilities for residents who rely on public transportation options.
“It’s about being connected and not being stuck needing to have a car,” she said. “That affects what schools you go to. It affects what jobs you can apply for. Your ability to get from here to there at the time you need to get there — pretty much your entire life is touched by that.”
The design for the new transit facility is still being finalized, Folkers said, with construction expected to get underway sometime next year. The anticipated opening date in mid-2026.
For more information about COLT, visit lovgov.org/COLT.
