Save your road rage for other stretches

Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), May 2, 2007 by BILL McKEOWN THE GAZETTE

Motorists who have endured stop-and-go traffic down southbound Interstate 25 near Woodmen Road for more than a year should finally be able to shift out of first gear Friday.

Crews will spend Thursday night painting lane markings on a new section of interstate between Woodmen and Garden of the Gods roads, and cars should be humming happily down the virgin concrete the next morning.

The new section was supposed to be opened today, but heavy rain Tuesday afternoon prevented crews from painting lane markings.

Since midsummer 2006, southbound traffic has been using a new frontage road while crews reconstructed the interstate.

The new section of interstate opening Friday will have two southbound lanes with a third lane opening in September.

With the new road comes a new exit, No. 148, which will access North Nevada Avenue, Corporate Drive and Rockrimmon Boulevard. An onramp to the interstate at Corporate Drive will open in September or October, and the opening of the Rockrimmon onramp is planned for later in the summer.

The new alignment opens up more than two miles of new concrete lanes and four new bridges to interstate motorists. I-25 in that area is 36 feet higher than the old interstate to accommodate several new underpasses.

The opening of the new section of interstate will be welcome news to motorists, but it will be several more months before other work relieves nightmarish traffic in the area.

The new northbound portion of the interstate from Garden of the Gods to Woodmen, now routed onto a frontage road that causes massive backups, will open in early June, said Bill Badger of Rockrimmon Constructors. At that time, crews will open the northbound Rockrimmon offramp.

By the end of September, crews hope to cap off major work in the area by opening all lanes and ramps at Nevada Avenue and the interstate.

That will complete work on the expansion of the northern portion of the interstate through Colorado Springs. Crews already have expanded the interstate to three lanes from Fillmore Street to Garden of the Gods and from Woodmen to Academy Boulevard.

Badger said crews are now completing the southern section of the interstate expansion. By the end of May, Bijou Street from the interstate to Spruce Street will open. In October, the new Bijou Street Bridge and its on and offramps will be opened for traffic, restoring easy access to downtown Colorado Springs.

Finally, the bridges carrying the interstate over Colorado Avenue will be completed by December.

The Colorado Springs Metro Interstate Expansion, dubbed COSMIX, began in February 2005 with design work. The objective: to widen I- 25 to three lanes in each direction along 12-plus miles from south of the Bijou interchange to just south of North Academy Boulevard. The interstate was built with enough room to allow eventual expansion of the road to four lanes in each direction.

Although the work has gone fairly smoothly and on schedule, federal safety officials in November cited contractors on the COSMIX project for dozens of serious violations and fined them $120,000.

The inspection that led to the fines started after a crane working on the project toppled in April 2006, killing its operator. It was the first of three crane collapses on the project.

The majority of the cost of the project -- $120 million for construction and $21 million for administration -- comes from bonds approved by voters statewide to speed up critical transportation projects.

The City of Colorado Springs has committed $10 million to help reconstruct the Bijou Bridge and to build the connection from North Nevada Avenue to Corporate Drive.

The interstate expansion was sorely needed, officials have said. When I-25 opened in 1960, about 8,500 vehicles a day cruised the roadway. Today, more than 100,000 cars each day crawl through the Colorado Springs interstate corridor.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0197 or bill.mckeown@gazette.com