US-24 in Colorado Springs

[Bobby5280]

Does anyone know of any plans, near or long term, of improving US-24 further from Colorado Springs on eastward toward Limon?

Some of my relatives have lived in the Colorado Springs area since the mid 1990s. In my visits over the years I've seen partial (arguably half-assed) upgrades made to various arterial roadways in the Colorado Springs area. There doesn't seem to be much motivation on completing certain corridors, such as Powers Blvd. (which I thought would eventually become an Interstate quality loop for Colorado Springs). Woodmen Road had the makings of another possible superhighway, but I think all the rapid development around that area will box in that corridor. It seems like a lot more work goes into the streets of new residential real estate housing subdivisions than the major roadways serving the area. There are large, new neighborhoods on the east side of Colorado Springs, spilling out onto US-24 -with much of it being a dinky two-lane road.

What makes this worse is the grisly, fatal accidents that occur along US-24. The highway leaves Colorado Springs in a diagonal path. Many intersections are just flat out odd, poorly signed, poorly lighted and downright dangerous. This past year CDOT finally decided to upgrade the intersection of Elbert Rd and US-24. I've seen police & emergency crews working fatal accidents near that intersection during at least a few of my visits there. The road has a mix of different traffic using it. It has lots of trucks heading to or from Limon and the connection to I-70. Residential growth has been rapid throughout this area. Let's not forget about the bicyclists too.

I think the highway situation in Colorado Springs is pretty strange, especially when considering a comparison to the small city in which I live: Lawton, OK. All major directions of travel in and out of Lawton are served by four lane, divided highways (I-44, US-62, OK-7). Lawton has maybe 1/6th the population of Colorado Springs. Yet Colorado is unable to have an important route like US-24 between Colorado Springs and Limon built at least to basic 4 lane divided standards. IMHO, that stretch of road ought to be an Interstate class spur off I-70, perhaps even with frontage roads from Peyton & Falcon down into the 'Springs. CDOT can't even manage to extend the four laning of US-24 as far as Falcon.

Anyway, I'm going to be driving out that way sometime soon. I just wanted to see if there's any new work pending on US-24 (or any of the other major routes in Colorado Springs).

[The High Plains Traveler]

Other than expanding the 4-lane toward Calhan (forget Limon) I think 24 is on the alignment it will always be. Unless someone like R-Dub with more local knowledge can provide more I think it is what it is. I'm not aware of plans to extend the short freeway portion east of I 25 though in the long term the concurrent part of 24 with Powers (CO 21) may be upgraded to freeway.

[Milepost61]

I'm not aware of anything major pending on US 24 either. Powers will be freeway-ized as money allows interchanges to be built. The Barnes-Platte stretch can be a bit of a bear, but beyond that it usually moves pretty well, in spite of all the signals.

There have been plans for another north-south expressway/freeway east of Powers through the Banning-Lewis Ranch development, but now that that development has gone belly-up probably no need for it to happen.

[Scott5114]

I have never been to Colorado Springs, but R-Dub's site gives me the impression that the whole city is kind of squirrelly from a roads standpoint. That means there's probably some sort of systemic planning failure going on here.

Also, belated welcome to the forum, Bobby! Nice to have a Lawton member...now we have all 4 of Oklahoma's largest cities represented here.

[usends]

I have never been to Colorado Springs, but R-Dub's site gives me the impression that the whole city is kind of squirrelly from a roads standpoint. That means there's probably some sort of systemic planning failure going on here.

I think there is a lot of truth to that... and I think part of the issue stems from an unspoken rivalry between Colorado's two largest cities.  People in the Springs are pretty adamant about not wanting to be "another Denver".  Unfortunately, one of the ways this has played out is that they consistently underbuild their road infrastructure (not that Denver is all that great either, but the Springs is even worse).  It seems to take such a long time for a road improvement to finally get completed... and meanwhile the population has increased so much that the net gain in traffic efficiency ends up being pretty minuscule.  Is there any other city with a population over 400k that has so few freeways?  The result is, getting around town is a nightmare... much worse than Denver, in my experience.

[Rover_0]

After looking at Colorado Springs on a map, I never knew that US-24 was so squirrelly as it passed through town.

I may be getting a job out that way, and if I do, I'll plan on snapping pictures.

[off-topic]
Of course, I'd get in touch with CoDOT and try to convince them to make CO-21 from Research Pkwy. to I-25 (when eventually completed) something like I-525 (as 125 and 325 are taken).
[/off-topic]

[The High Plains Traveler]

I have never been to Colorado Springs, but R-Dub's site gives me the impression that the whole city is kind of squirrelly from a roads standpoint. That means there's probably some sort of systemic planning failure going on here.

I think there is a lot of truth to that... and I think part of the issue stems from an unspoken rivalry between Colorado's two largest cities.  People in the Springs are pretty adamant about not wanting to be "another Denver".  Unfortunately, one of the ways this has played out is that they consistently underbuild their road infrastructure (not that Denver is all that great either, but the Springs is even worse).  It seems to take such a long time for a road improvement to finally get completed... and meanwhile the population has increased so much that the net gain in traffic efficiency ends up being pretty minuscule.  Is there any other city with a population over 400k that has so few freeways?  The result is, getting around town is a nightmare... much worse than Denver, in my experience.

If I start commenting on the Springs, I get political quickly, so I have to watch myself. To their credit, El Paso County has approved a sales tax to support the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority (PPRTA), which has funded numerous local road improvements. On the other hand, this is the city that eliminated its stormwater utility, which funded local projects to improve its crumbling stormwater infrastructure with a small fee on property, because the populace did not want to pay a "rain tax". I'm not sure it's an anti-Denver mentality as much as it is an anti-government mentality that believes that infrastructure improvements are done by benevolent elves under cover of darkness at no cost to the community. Or, there is a free market alternative that would save everyone millions of dollars over just having a municipal agency plan and execute needed projects. I'd feel a lot better about having the Springs upstream of me if they'd run Dougie Bruce out of town on a rail.

CDOT did exchange local streets that were in the state highway network with the city and county and took over Powers Blvd. (CO-21) with the idea that eventually it would be upgraded to freeway around the city. The time horizon on this is quite long.

[Milepost61]

I put the blame on lack of planning freeway corridors. The city seemed to be unimaginative in its formative years, and now all the growth has happened and it's too late.

COS has an extensive 6-lane arterial network that can get you around town, but they have too many signals and none of them are in a straight line. You'll get there, it will just take awhile.

[agentsteel53]

If I start commenting on the Springs, I get political quickly, so I have to watch myself.

if it's signed from the freeway, it's fair game.

fuck you, Focus on the Family.

[Mark68]

Of course, they now have other problems with US 24 west of town, due to the Waldo Canyon fire last year and the subsequent flash flooding both on 24 and in Manitou Springs this summer. They may have to rebuild/reroute 24 so that it's not directly downstream from Waldo.

It was my experience having lived there during the mid-90s that their idea of "planning" was to be dragged kicking and screaming by situations that had to be all-too-obvious to somebody with a pair of eyes. The 24 Bypass to Nowhere made more sense before they moved the airport terminal farther south. Now you get a high speed bypass from I-25 to the east that drops you right smack dab in front of an apartment complex.

I'm sure Powers will be a full freeway eventually...like around the middle of the century.

[Sykotyk]

Of course, they now have other problems with US 24 west of town, due to the Waldo Canyon fire last year and the subsequent flash flooding both on 24 and in Manitou Springs this summer. They may have to rebuild/reroute 24 so that it's not directly downstream from Waldo.

It was my experience having lived there during the mid-90s that their idea of "planning" was to be dragged kicking and screaming by situations that had to be all-too-obvious to somebody with a pair of eyes. The 24 Bypass to Nowhere made more sense before they moved the airport terminal farther south. Now you get a high speed bypass from I-25 to the east that drops you right smack dab in front of an apartment complex.

But, I'm sure those renters love it.

I'm sure Powers will be a full freeway eventually...like around the middle of the century.

I've driven around Colorado Springs extensively. So much of that city just falls to lack of planning. Which is amazing. because most cities west of the MN/ND to TX/NM line are able to plan for future growth quite well. Colorado Springs, however, feels much more like they don't want to do anything until it's years after needing to be done. And then not doing enough.

[bugo]

I've driven around Colorado Springs extensively. So much of that city just falls to lack of planning. Which is amazing. because most cities west of the MN/ND to TX/NM line are able to plan for future growth quite well. Colorado Springs, however, feels much more like they don't want to do anything until it's years after needing to be done. And then not doing enough.

Colorado Springs is run by evangelical Fundamentalist Christians, so it doesn't surprise me that they don't know how to plan for the future.

[The High Plains Traveler]

I've driven around Colorado Springs extensively. So much of that city just falls to lack of planning. Which is amazing. because most cities west of the MN/ND to TX/NM line are able to plan for future growth quite well. Colorado Springs, however, feels much more like they don't want to do anything until it's years after needing to be done. And then not doing enough.

Colorado Springs is run by evangelical Fundamentalist Christians, so it doesn't surprise me that they don't know how to plan for the future.

That is a stereotype that isn't entirely accurate. The city is unflinchingly conservative because of the active and retired military as well as (yes) the presence of evangelical organizations like Focus, but there is a wide spectrum of conservative politics. There are a few liberals and (gasp) even gay people. I know some who fall into both categories.

[agentsteel53]

There are a few liberals and (gasp) even gay people. I know some who fall into both categories.

I, too, know the occasional liberal gay person.

[mgk920]

I've driven around Colorado Springs extensively. So much of that city just falls to lack of planning. Which is amazing. because most cities west of the MN/ND to TX/NM line are able to plan for future growth quite well. Colorado Springs, however, feels much more like they don't want to do anything until it's years after needing to be done. And then not doing enough.

Colorado Springs is run by evangelical Fundamentalist Christians, so it doesn't surprise me that they don't know how to plan for the future.

That is a stereotype that isn't entirely accurate. The city is unflinchingly conservative because of the active and retired military as well as (yes) the presence of evangelical organizations like Focus, but there is a wide spectrum of conservative politics. There are a few liberals and (gasp) even gay people. I know some who fall into both categories.

Also a fairly noticeable LDS presence.

Agreed on the high-powered military presence, with NORAD, Fort Carson and the USAF Academy.

Mike

[brad2971]

I have never been to Colorado Springs, but R-Dub's site gives me the impression that the whole city is kind of squirrelly from a roads standpoint. That means there's probably some sort of systemic planning failure going on here.

I think there is a lot of truth to that... and I think part of the issue stems from an unspoken rivalry between Colorado's two largest cities.  People in the Springs are pretty adamant about not wanting to be "another Denver".  Unfortunately, one of the ways this has played out is that they consistently underbuild their road infrastructure (not that Denver is all that great either, but the Springs is even worse).  It seems to take such a long time for a road improvement to finally get completed... and meanwhile the population has increased so much that the net gain in traffic efficiency ends up being pretty minuscule.  Is there any other city with a population over 400k that has so few freeways?  The result is, getting around town is a nightmare... much worse than Denver, in my experience.

If I start commenting on the Springs, I get political quickly, so I have to watch myself. To their credit, El Paso County has approved a sales tax to support the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority (PPRTA), which has funded numerous local road improvements. On the other hand, this is the city that eliminated its stormwater utility, which funded local projects to improve its crumbling stormwater infrastructure with a small fee on property, because the populace did not want to pay a "rain tax". I'm not sure it's an anti-Denver mentality as much as it is an anti-government mentality that believes that infrastructure improvements are done by benevolent elves under cover of darkness at no cost to the community. Or, there is a free market alternative that would save everyone millions of dollars over just having a municipal agency plan and execute needed projects. I'd feel a lot better about having the Springs upstream of me if they'd run Dougie Bruce out of town on a rail.

CDOT did exchange local streets that were in the state highway network with the city and county and took over Powers Blvd. (CO-21) with the idea that eventually it would be upgraded to freeway around the city. The time horizon on this is quite long.

What, Doug Bruce being incarcerated wasn't good enough? Tsk Tsk.

Anyway, I'll slow down my political comments as well. And I'll be fair to Colorado Springs: It's very hard to justify anything approaching an eastern beltway/tollway when there can never be enough non-local tourist traffic that would take such a beltway. Look at any map of Colorado Springs and tell me where you would put a beltway that:

a. Avoids as much of the Black Forest area as possible.
b. gets people arriving at the airport to take it to destinations like the AFA, Fort Carson, and the Broadmoor?
c. Gets enough thru trucks taking it on a time-saving basis.

You can now see why Colorado Springs/EPCO choose to expand surface streets where feasible/affordable. But take heart: At least Colorado Springs understands the value of grade-separated interchanges at major arterial street junctions. Tucson and Victorville/Apple Valley/Hesperia would do well to take note.

[Bobby5280]

I was in Colorado Springs just recently (in the week leading up to the Labor Day holiday).

Commercial and residential development in the 'Springs is continuing, at least to my eyes, at a pretty rapid pace while improvements to roads is happening very slowly. At best, road improvements are taking place piece-meal style one intersection at a time rather than any broad plan taking shape being executed (like I see on a routine basis down in Texas).

The new SPUIs at the Woodmen/Academy and Union/Austin Bluffs seem nice, but they're a minor reprieve to the traffic jam punishment one can receive before and after them during in rush hour driving around the 'Springs. The Milton E Proby Parkway is yet another segment of almost but not really freeway style road. It's built in the same vain as the upgrade to Woodmen.

Powers badly needs to be converted to a full blown Interstate highway, although there's no direct way to tie it into I-25. CDOT could at least get started by replacing signal light intersections south of the Platte Ave. cloverleaf interchange. The lights at Fountain, Aeroplaza Drive and Airport Road are culprits in serious traffic back-ups. I experienced a couple of them in that stretch of Powers during my last visit.

Commercial developers in the 'Springs seem to like things like roundabouts. There's at least one of them near the Cinemark+IMAX theater off Powers. They also like creating really stupid maze-like street layouts within the developments that make drivers circle around all over the place to find a surface street. When I got back to Lawton and visited a new Qdoba restaurant at the new shopping center on 82nd street it seemed like a relief to have numerous alternatives to enter/exit onto the city's street grid.

[The High Plains Traveler]

I was in Colorado Springs just recently (in the week leading up to the Labor Day holiday).


The new SPUIs at the Woodmen/Academy and Union/Austin Bluffs seem nice, but they're a minor reprieve to the traffic jam punishment one can receive before and after them during in rush hour driving around the 'Springs. The Milton E Proby Parkway is yet another segment of almost but not really freeway style road. It's built in the same vain as the upgrade to Woodmen.

Proby is the access road to COS (the airport), designed to provide an almost-nonstop route from I-25 at Academy. It really doesn't do a lot for through-city traffic, though I have now adopted it as my route from I-25 from the south to U.S. 24 east toward Limon. I think it was constructed to an appropriate standard - an interchange at Hancock isn't needed.

Powers badly needs to be converted to a full blown Interstate highway, although there's no direct way to tie it into I-25.

The plan is to connect the north side of CO-21 to I-25 at the Northgate interchange. That requires a fairly short piece of road from the current end of Powers at CO-83. Further down Powers from there, interchange construction is underway. The south end is in question, since 21 could bypass Fountain to the south before intersecting I-25. When CO-21 was created, the mileposts were based on I-25 instead of a south terminus somewhere in that area.

CDOT could at least get started by replacing signal light intersections south of the Platte Ave. cloverleaf interchange. The lights at Fountain, Aeroplaza Drive and Airport Road are culprits in serious traffic back-ups. I experienced a couple of them in that stretch of Powers during my last visit.

Those will require major reconstruction and will thus be the last intersections to be replaced with interchanges.

Another U.S. 24 observation is that the recent torrential rains have shown how vulnerable the highway between Colorado Springs and Woodland Park, up Ute Pass, is.  If you live in Woodland Park and work in the Springs, 24 is the only route unless you want to take a 75 mile (guessing at this) detour through Cripple Creek and Cañon City. The fires have really made the Ute Pass area dangerous for mudslides and flash flooding which close down 24 on short notice.

EDIT: It's about 100 miles further to go from Woodland Park through Cripple Creek and Cañon City to Colorado Springs than directly down U.S. 24. More of a detour than I thought. This is using all paved roads; there is a route down Phantom Canyon from Victor that would be much shorter but it's dirt and only one lane wide in places.

[r-dub]

Damn, I'm late to the party here, huh? 

To summarize all the bitching about COS (which is mostly deserved, BTW), yes, there's little to no planning on anything roads and infrastructure here.

Best non-road example is the Southern Delivery System (SDS). This is a new pipeline from the Pueblo Reservoir up to the springs and is designed to provide water for the area for at least 50 more years, iirc. The problem is that Pueblo is pretty peeved that COS keeps letting their storm and wastewater continue unabated down Fountain Creek into their city. So until the legal snafus are solved, the $1B+ SDS project can be completed--just not turned on. And my utility bill demonstrates the joy of that funding.

Oh, yeah, US 24. That's what we're here for.  I have seen no plans at all about any widening of 24 past where it's at right now. I have been digging around the 2040 Plans for El Paso County a lot recently due to the absolute clusterf--k of an intersection rebuild they forced upon Black Forest residents and my coffee shop, (Article at the Gazette: http://blogs.gazette.com/lite/2013/08/30/black-forest-residents-upset-over-disruption-of-road-construction/), and no major work is planned. Sure, a few intersection realignments, but nothing of note. And plus, as noted above, the focus on 24 work right now and for the foreseeable future is in the Ute Pass Area. One quick gulley-washer downpour completely overran the highway with mud, logs, and gunk from the Waldo Canyon Burn Scar.

The biggest overarching problem in Colorado Springs isn't the fundamentalists, surprisingly. (Although my running joke is that the reason this city is so religious is because we all pray to God we can survive driving anywhere here...) It's the developers. They completely and utterly run the city and county out here. Whatever the developer wants they get just so the county can get their precious rooftops and sprawl. Best example was talked about here in the thread: the Woodmen/Academy overpass. I distinctly remember that when the Sam's Club development went in on the northwest corner of the intersection, city council demanded the developers pay for the interchange installation or the project was dead. That Sam's has been in now for over 15 years and the city/county/PPRTA just paid for the interchange last year. Another example is the Banning-Lewis Ranch annex. The county was delaying widening of Marksheffel Road until the developer could pony up money to help. The developer still got to build the homes and now is completely belly-up. With no widening planned without another PPRTA expansion. And just down the road the city authorized a developer to build a subdivision on a known floodplain. Guess what? The houses are full, the developer is belly-up, and you can't find a sump pump in this city to save your life.

Wow, I'm ranting.

Long story short, there is an epidemic of shortsightedness when it comes to any project here in the city/El Paso County. The chief engineer is adamant to rebuild things to MUTCD standard--logical, reasonable thinking be damned--and it's hurting the area more than helping. Too many NIMBYers abound, and the only way road projects happen is if a politician out here can raise their campaign re-election flag on them.

And, as an aside, to all you who visited my little city, thanks for telling me! Slackers. 

[Mark68]

I've driven around Colorado Springs extensively. So much of that city just falls to lack of planning. Which is amazing. because most cities west of the MN/ND to TX/NM line are able to plan for future growth quite well. Colorado Springs, however, feels much more like they don't want to do anything until it's years after needing to be done. And then not doing enough.

Colorado Springs is run by evangelical Fundamentalist Christians, so it doesn't surprise me that they don't know how to plan for the future.

Why plan for the future when you're gonna be raptured?