CO: I-70 Floyd Hill Project

Curing a Bottleneck Across the Great Divide

Challenge: If you have ever lived in Colorado, you’ve probably been frustrated and perhaps terrorized by the traffic delays along the winding, eight-mile stretch of I-70 between Evergreen and Idaho Springs. The existing curves along this route frequently obscure drivers’ line of sight, creating slow-downs and rear-end crashes that lead to tie-ups and closures. The infrastructure around Floyd Hill was built in the 1960s and badly needs an upgrade, especially with the growing population along Colorado’s Front Range and the increasing traffic volumes on I-70.

Solution: The Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) began work last year on the first phase of a three-phase, mammoth project to add a third, west-bound, full-time toll express lane that runs from west of Homestead Road through the Veterans Memorial Tunnels to Colorado Blvd. and Idaho Springs. Funded in part by a $100 million “Nationally Significant Multimodal Freight & Highway Projects” (INFRA) grant from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the project also will rebuild bridges damaged by weather and heavy use, improve roadway curves, construct a two-mile section of frontage road between U.S. Highway 6 and the Hidden Valley and Central City Parkway interchanges, and build an extended on-ramp from U.S. Highway 6 to allow slow-moving traffic to more easily merge.

What they’re saying: “From a public works perspective, this is huge. The area has always been a chokepoint. And it’s a significant area for safety concerns.”
-Skyler McKinley, spokesperson for AAA Colorado. “ (Roads & Bridges, 07/25/2023)