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Elm:
--- Quote from: Bobby5280 on October 07, 2022, 09:27:34 PM ---$49 million? What kind of interchange are they planning at Powers & Airport Road? Some sort of exotic SPUI design? In that location it would seem like a standard diamond interchange would be good enough. I wouldn't be surprised to see some kind of odd-ball cloverleaf design built though.
The traffic engineers have to take in account an existing on-ramp from Stewart Avenue just North of the Airport Road intersection. On Powers Southbound in that spot there is a kind of ramp stub. I wonder if there are plans for SB off-ramp from Powers over to Stewart Avenue.
I'm a bit surprised they're choosing to build an interchange at Airport Road rather than just build new interchanges in sequence going South from Woodmen Road. OTOH, there is plenty of open land at the Airport Road intersection for building a new interchange with Powers. The project might be considered easy "low hanging fruit."
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They're planning a DDI, arranged like this with Airport Rd angling toward Stewart Ave. The circa 2010ish design was like the Powers & Woodmen interchange, but with the loop ramps on the south side (Wayback Machine PDF link for the general idea).
In addition to the low hanging fruit aspect with the empty space and having ROW already dedicated, the Airport-Stewart interchange probably got some higher priority since it leads to Peterson's main gate; they called it a priority interchange back when they finished the Central Powers study, but then CDOT widened Powers around there first instead of building it.
Speaking of the Central Powers study, this project is kind of significant for being the first interchange in that study area (Woodmen to Mesa Ridge) to be built after the study. Doesn't inspire much confidence in the freeway conversion as a whole, though.
--- Quote from: Bobby5280 on October 07, 2022, 09:27:34 PM ---Farther South I think US-24 needs a couple flyover ramps at that 90 degree intersection with Powers -that is, whenever they get around to converting that intersection into a limited access interchange. Good luck on something like that ever getting built though.
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It's not current, but because I think it's kind of interesting since it predates most concrete plans for Powers — one of CDOT's ROW plans for the US 24 Bypass shows some different features for this area: pdf here. At some point, they were picturing direct ramps at Fountain/Powers for EB-to-NB and NB-to-WB; also, the Airport/Stewart interchange had one loop ramp, Powers/Platte was a SPUI, and Aeroplaza was restricted to RIRO at Fountain.
Now, I think the not-so-recent latest concept for Fountain/Powers is that there'd be a loop ramp for eastbound US 24 (like this: another Wayback Machine PDF). CDOT seems pretty into DDIs, though, so maybe they'd do another; since the city seems poised to reclassify Fountain Blvd from a "freeway" to a "major arterial" (May 2022 draft map), and they're proposing a study for rerouting US 24 (with Woodmen as the main candidate), I don't know that they'd stretch much with the design here. But like you said, we'll likely never see an interchange anyway.
(Aside, I wish the city had gotten the Fountain/Academy interchange out of CDOT before all this. When they traded to make Powers a highway, CDOT agreed to build that interchange eventually, but I can't really imagine them doing that now.)
Elm:
CDOT posted the final Santa Fe Drive (US 85) PEL on their site: main PDF here, and page linking all study docs.
The project recommendations section starts on page 66 with a map and table following; roadway-wise, most proposals are quadrant road and channelized-T intersections.
Possible projects for future study beyond a ten-year time frame (see page 77) include more grade separations and a freeway between Mineral and Bowles Aves.
Plutonic Panda:
More press about the anti freeway crap in Colorado: https://www.cpr.org/2022/10/17/cdot-may-be-slowing-highway-expansions-but-dont-expect-any-highway-removals/
roadman65:
https://kdvr.com/news/local/photos-dozens-of-cars-totaled-in-100-vehicle-crash/
Elm:
A while back, CDOT received an unsolicited proposal to finish and operate the express lanes on I-25 between US 36 and Hwy 14, with emphasis on the E-470-to-Hwy-66 segment, where they're not built or in progress. The proposal has officially been rejected: Colorado rejects private bid for toll lane expansion of I-25 between Denver and Fort Collins (CPR).
(There's also a similar paywalled Denver Post article.)
They rejected it in an executive session, so there's not much insight into the rationale.
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