Colorado’s subsequent main freeway enterprise kicks off this week as crews start work on the $700 million reconstruction of Interstate 70 within the mountains — a venture aimed toward eliminating the Floyd Hill bottleneck and enhancing security via a infamous eight-mile stretch.
A lot of probably the most intensive work over the following 5 years or so will happen off the freeway. However the Colorado Division of Transporation says drivers touring I-70 between the highest of Floyd Hill and Idaho Springs nonetheless can anticipate decrease pace limits, narrowed lanes and visitors shifts, together with some daytime visitors holds and in a single day closures.
The venture technically broke floor final fall with the beginning of a number of related off-highway tasks, together with the primary of two wildlife crossings outdoors the venture zone and new roundabouts on a frontage highway.
However now comes the principle occasion. Quickly CDOT’s contractors will start rock blasting to make extra room, and in coming years they’ll assemble a 7,000-foot-long bridge to hold westbound visitors into Clear Creek Canyon on the backside of Floyd Hill.
“The mountain hall is a difficult atmosphere,” stated Kurt Kionka, CDOT’s venture director, at a cease halfway down Floyd Hill throughout a venture hall media tour in June. “In an effort to assemble this, we have to construct up above the present alignment, after which we additionally want to chop into the mountainside.”
Here’s a have a look at the venture, the development schedule and the anticipated impression — each whereas it’s underway and as soon as it’s all accomplished in late 2028.
The plan: A hovering bridge and extra visitors capability
The venture’s principal capability enlargement will include the addition of a westbound tolled categorical lane. It would start the place the freeway presently narrows to 2 lanes, close to the highest of Floyd Hill, and to the west it would tie into an present peak-period categorical lane on the Veterans Memorial Tunnels, close to Idaho Springs. The three-lane eastbound aspect gained’t get any extra via lanes.
Crews additionally will straighten a number of sharp curves via Clear Creek Canyon, rebuild previous bridges and assemble the brand new, more-than-a-mile-long bridge for westbound visitors. On the eastbound aspect going up Floyd Hill, they’ll add an prolonged on-ramp from U.S. 6 to function a climbing lane for slow-moving semitrailer vehicles and different heavy automobiles.
Off the freeway, the venture contains the development of a lacking two-mile stretch of frontage highway within the canyon for native and emergency visitors, together with enhancements to the Clear Creek Greenway path.
The venture’s most notable options
Some designs are nonetheless being finalized by CDOT’s building supervisor, Kraemer North America, and lead designer Atkins. However the main parts are set, drawing on artistic options to ease the circulation of visitors in sometimes-harrowing circumstances — significantly on Floyd Hill, the place drivers descend practically 700 ft in simply over two miles after which should make a pointy left flip into the canyon.
Whereas the eastbound aspect will keep totally on the bottom when the venture’s accomplished, westbound visitors will depart the prevailing I-70 footprint close to the underside of the hill, hovering 100 ft within the air on that lengthy new bridge because it banks extra gently into the canyon.
A part of that smoother curve will probably be achieved by crossing westbound visitors over the eastbound lanes — leading to a reverse visitors configuration for a brief stretch, till the westbound lanes cross again over and return to the bottom.
Kionka says the tight curve on the backside of Floyd Hill, now rated for 45 mph, will probably be upgraded to 55 mph by the tip of the venture, lowering backups triggered now by drivers hitting the brakes as they strategy the curve on the downhill.
How building will play out
CDOT and its contractors have divided the venture hall into three sections with overlapping building timelines:
- East part: Work between County Highway 65 (Exit 348, Beaver Brook) and the underside of Floyd Hill contains rock-blasting and out of doors widening on each side of I-70 to make room for the westbound categorical lane and the eastbound climbing lane. Timeline: Begins this month, with completion set in 2026.
- Central part: Essentially the most intensive part, accounting for roughly two-thirds of the venture’s value, runs from the midpoint of Floyd Hill to the Hidden Valley interchange (Exit 243) partway via the canyon; it overlaps barely with the east part. Crews first will construct the 7,000-foot-long westbound bridge on piers off the present freeway, then use the room freed up by the removing of the previous westbound lanes to reconstruct the eastbound aspect at floor degree. At a decent curve at Sawmill Gulch, each instructions of visitors will cross Clear Creek into a brief “tiered reduce” constructed into the mountainside on the south aspect of the canyon, earlier than crossing again to the north aspect of the creek. The brand new frontage highway hyperlink will probably be added on this part. Timeline: Begins in 2024, with completion anticipated in fall 2028.
- West part: Work between Hidden Valley and Exit 241 (Idaho Springs) contains widening and important blasting of rock, largely at one curve east of the Veterans tunnels the place the rock reduce will attain 200 ft excessive, in accordance with CDOT venture supervisor Jeff Hampton. Timeline: Begins this fall, with completion anticipated in fall 2027.
How will building have an effect on visitors?
The development zone will include decrease pace limits and different constraints that unavoidably have an effect on visitors. However CDOT officers anticipate to maintain all present lanes open throughout peak journey hours, with lane closures restricted to in a single day hours.
There’s an enormous exception: Rock blasting that begins within the east part in late July or August would require 20-minute visitors holds throughout daytime hours that would again up visitors for greater than twice as lengthy, CDOT says. These are anticipated to occur a couple of times every week, however extra blasting in different venture sections will make the holds a recurring characteristic via 2025, affecting not solely freeway visitors however rafting corporations that run journeys on Clear Creek.
Later within the venture, full in a single day closures of I-70 within the central part will include detours of visitors onto U.S. 6 and U.S. 40.
Drivers can keep on prime of anticipated holds and lane closures by checking the venture web site, at codot.gov/tasks/i70floydhill, preserving tabs on CDOT’s COtrip web site or app, or signing up for textual content alerts (textual content “floydhill” to 21000).
Will the venture enhance I-70 visitors?
Undertaking officers are cautious to say the venture is as a lot about enhancing security alongside one of the crucial tough mountain corridors as it’s about addressing congestion.
However Kionka, the venture director, says the venture’s modifications, together with the brand new westbound categorical lane, not less than ought to enhance visitors circulation. Not like the prevailing mountain categorical lanes to the west, which have been constructed on the highway shoulders and are open solely throughout peak intervals, the brand new categorical lane will probably be constructed at full width and can all the time be open.
“After we are full right here, we will definitely see assuaging the bottleneck” at Floyd Hill, Kionka stated. “With flattening the curves, enhancing the sight distance, it will likely be a lot safer to journey via right here, and I believe you’ll see visitors transfer significantly better.”
CDOT goals to cut back environmental impression
There’s little question that this can be a highway-widening venture, one launched in an period wherein CDOT faces new greenhouse fuel emission discount targets that would make such tasks much less widespread.
However the Floyd Hill venture was the impetus for CDOT’s launch final yr of Pegasus, a van-based transit service aimed toward offering a substitute for driving on the hall. Now working each day between Denver’s Union Station and Avon, with a number of stops in cities alongside the way in which, the service has grown from lots of of riders a month to three,300 in March, in accordance with the newest figures obtainable.
Two wildlife crossings are among the many aspect tasks begun final yr. One underpass being constructed on I-70 close to Genesee will accommodate an elk herd, officers say, whereas a land bridge deliberate to the west — over U.S. 40 between I-70 and Empire — is meant for bighorn sheep that frequent the world.
Undertaking designs at one level included important rerouting of Clear Creek via the canyon, however that’s now not deliberate, Kionka stated — a transfer that saves cash but in addition will keep away from additional disturbance to the atmosphere. The freeway will probably be routed farther from the river in the midst of the canyon, doubtlessly permitting for restricted riparian restoration.
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