VOLUME 40 • NUMBER 14 • MARCH 3, 2022
Since 1982
www.facebook.com/thevillager1982
twitter.com/thevillager1982
Price $1 per copy
Buttigieg comes to Floyd Hill to talk about infrastructure spending in Colorado
O
BY FREDA MIKLIN GOVERNMENTAL REPORTER
n February 24, Pete Buttigieg, U.S. Secretary of Transportation, held a press conference next to the Floyd Hill bridge on I-70, east of Idaho Springs, to talk about how the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, passed last fall and signed by President Biden on November 15, 2021, will benefit Colorado. Buttigieg was accompanied by Gov. Jared Polis, Colorado’s two U.S. Senators, Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, and U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, as well as Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) Executive Director Shoshana Lew and I-70 Coalition Director Margaret Bowes. Floyd Hill, including the bridge, is the starting location of a $600 million, five-year renovation project to expand the area so that it is less dangerous and no longer a bottleneck for local traffic accessing Colorado’s mountain recreation areas, as well as cross-country drivers, including truckers. Addressing the impact on truckers, Buttigieg said, “This is part of what America’s supply chains look like. When trucks are backed up or unable to get to where they need to go in a timely fashion, that is something you will see in
This rendering by CDOT illustrates the Canyon Viaduct that is planned as the end result of the Floyd Hill project.
shipping times and in prices at the store.” Senator Bennet agreed, saying, “Floyd Hill is an incredible pain point on I-70, both for Coloradans that are trying to get to and from the mountains, but also for everybody who’s coming across the United States of America and has a reason to expect that they can travel on a hill that’s actually safe.” According to CDOT, the project, which extends from east of the Floyd Hill/Beaver Brook exit (248) westbound through the Veterans Me-
morial Tunnels to Colorado Boulevard/Idaho Springs Exit (241), will commence this summer with actual construction beginning next year. It is expected to “improve travel time reliability, safety, and mobility, and address the deficient infrastructure along eight miles of I-70 from west of Evergreen in the Floyd Hill area through the Veterans Memorial Tunnels to the eastern edge of Idaho Springs. Major elements of the Project include adding a third westbound travel
SUBSCRIBE TO THE VILLAGER TODAY - CALL 303-773-8313
lane on I-70, constructing a missing frontage road connection, adding an eastbound auxiliary lane to the uphill section of Floyd Hill, improving interchanges and intersections, improving design speeds and stopping sight distance on horizontal curves, improving the Clear Creek Greenway, and implementing environmental mitigation for wildlife connectivity, air and water quality, stream conditions, and recreation.” In addition, CDOT expects the project to, “save users
more than an hour of travel time for summer and winter weekend trips and decrease the number and severity of crashes through more consistent traffic flow and speeds.” This is not a new idea. The second phase of planning for this project began back in 2017. Bennet said, “We’re here today to say that we’re going to start this project with state money. And we hope we’re gonna have some federal Continued on page 12