New E-470 Travel Plazas

[thenetwork]

What do you do when you own the E-470 Tollway  and eliminate manual toll plazas and going full on with ORT/Pay by Plate?

You convert some of the manual toll plaza areas into Travel Plazas!

E-470 just recently opened up it's first of 3 Travel Plazas.  They are operated by Applegreen and are similar to Service Plazas on other tollways, but geared more to drivers that don't drive big rigs.

The first one opened at the last toll plaza near Parker southbound in the footprint where those who paid manually would have gone off the main carriageway. 

The other 2 Applegreen Travel plazas will soon be opening at the toll plaza just north of Pena Boulevard, by DIA.

And, yes, the tollway will still read your plate/transponder and charge you the appropriate toll as you leave E-470 for the Travel plaza!

Haven't stopped, but I drove by all 3 of the locations last week.

[Elm]

Unfortunately just a day or two before it opened, I was driving by that first travel plaza and really would've appreciated the quick off-and-onto the highway. Another time, I guess, or maybe a different one will be open by then.

Here's E-470's webpage on them, too, which has a general map:
https://e470.com/travel-info/projects/applegreen/

[Great Lakes Roads]

The Parker location has applegreen Coffee, Panda Express, Shake Shack, and Starbucks as your food options.

[thenetwork]

Dang, I completely missed the 4th location, northbound by the Aurora toll plaza. 

I guess I saw the VMS sign going southbound, and was looking for it on time side of the road.

[vdeane]

Is there demand for travel plazas on 470?  As I understand it, the traffic here is suburban in nature and probably not in need of a gas/food/bathroom break mid-trip.  Travel plazas feel more useful to me for long-distance traffic.

[JayhawkCO]

Is there demand for travel plazas on 470?  As I understand it, the traffic here is suburban in nature and probably not in need of a gas/food/bathroom break mid-trip.  Travel plazas feel more useful to me for long-distance traffic.

Yeah, the volume is largely suburban and not a lot of through traffic/truck traffic in general. I had the same thought in general. I only take it very occasionally from my house in South Aurora to the airport or to a friend's house that lives near the airport. I'm maybe on it once every two months. But I can't imagine really needing to stop for food since my total trip door to door is 25 minutes at most.

[doorknob60]

I would have considered stopping at one a couple months ago if they were open. I was driving back to the airport to drop off my rental car (coming from around Columbine). An easy travel plaza to fill the gas tank before dropping off the car would have been a good option.

I ended up using a QT off Tower Rd. A mile or two out of the way, but knew it would be a decent station with fair prices.

[The Ghostbuster]

Other than reconstructing existing service areas, I think these might be the first new service areas built in a long time (I'm not counting ones that were relocated from another location on the same toll road; e.g. Topeka Service Area on the Kansas Turnpike).

[elsmere241]

I was a cashier at the Roy Rogers in what was then "Delaware House", July and August 1991.

From time to time, I did see people I'd known in Newark, usually we'd gone to school together or something.  It wasn't that often though.  Most of the volume came from chartered buses and the like.

Something else: no one stopped and came in if it was raining really hard.

[thenetwork]

Overall, I think they are more geared to airport traffic.  I'd love to see a survey down the road as to who would use them more -- locals, or regional/DIA travelers, or a place to stop for those ultimately heading east on I-70 when the roads are closed due to weather..

But again, it's a good use for abandoned cash plaza areas...More ways to take money from you.

[Plutonic Panda]

I mean, I use them if I was passing through Colorado and just wanted a place to park my car and sleep, or I needed to piss. Even in my hometown, there's been times where I've been in traffic and needed to pee, so I've had to get off and find somewhere to pee at, but these service plazas would be very helpful. I like this kind of stuff. It'll be interesting to see how well they perform.