I drove I-25 from Denver to Colorado Springs and that roadway very much needs to be like eight lanes between the two cities (all the way.) If they want they can make the far left lane a toll lane and have three general purpose lanes.
Yeah, they definitely want some toll lanes up to the Denver metro there. Going through there, you'll have seen the construction between Castle Rock and Monument—that's setting up two general purpose lanes and one HOT lane each way (via the
"I-25 South Gap" project). For the larger corridor, a
2019 PEL study related to that project recommended extending the HOT lanes north to C-470 and adding another lane in each direction from Hwy 105 (Monument) to C-470. It doesn't specify how that last lane would operate, unlike studies for, say C-470 (2 GPL + 2 toll) or I-25 north of Denver (3 GPL + 1 HOT), but there's also no reason to expect that to be built in the foreseeable future.
The last time I was in Colorado Springs was in 2007 and I remember I-25 being under construction. I was under an impression that they were rebuilding the whole road through the city from say Academy Blvd south to about US 24 east. I guess it was more of a piecemeal thing with various stretches being worked on at different times (the construction I remember seeing was up around Nevada Avenue and Woodman Road.) One stretch around Fillmore Street is three lanes but still looks to be in its original pavement. Still the majority of the roadway through the city appears well-built and is well used. I also drove south to Pueblo and it certainly seems that I-25 could be made three lanes a bit further south through Fountain as traffic was very heavy along that corridor.
There have been a lot of projects on I-25 in the Springs, but that was likely the
"COSMIX" widening project, which was one of the largest batches of reconstruction in the area and affected Bijou-ish to North Academy. Since then, Woodmen to Hwy 105 was widened (the most recent major non-tolled widening in Colorado?), the Fillmore and Cimarron interchanges were rebuilt, and some kind of preparation is [mercifully] underway to add auxiliary lanes between Fillmore and Garden of the Gods, perhaps making it look more like nearby segments.
There's
an environmental assessment behind those projects, where the eventual goal would be six lanes from South Academy to Hwy 105, then an additional lane from US 24 East (MLK Bypass) to Briargate, which would be rush hour HOV-only. It's a relatively old study and predates much of CDOT's managed lane work, so I wouldn't be surprised to see that evolve into more typical express lanes and cover a wider area.
A segment of HOV lanes made it into the 10-Year Plan, though.
I also drove along Powers Boulevard, a roadway that I take as the hypothetical beltway around eastern Colorado Springs. I read all the content about it on this thread so I know it's a long story about its state of being. I did have one question about Powers though, why are the exit numbers in the 100s for the few exits along that stretch. Since SH 21 starts there in Colorado Springs itself shouldn't the exit numbers be in the single digits and teens?
I don't know of any official word, but the working theory from
this thread is that they're generally based on I-25 and allow for extending down through Fountain without risking running past zero ("near Pikes Peak International Raceway" is the usual endpoint).
Incidentally, El Paso County is starting up a new study of that extension this year; there's not much information, but
this document does at least include the map from the old corridor study on the last page, as well as other background. Unfortunately, several Powers Boulevard studies took place in the late '90s and early 2000s, and they're not readily available online.
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Topic: Colorado (Read 64963 times)