Colorado transportation officials have faced a flurry of legal challenges over the massive proposed project to widen Interstate 70 through northeast Denver — and they acknowledged Thursday that the plan likely will face new court challenges.
But after 14 years, officials finally have a long-sought document in hand: a federal “Record of Decision” that ends a thorough environmental impact study and gives the Colorado Department of Transportation an official green light to plow forward with the $1.2 billion project.
“When you talk about a marathon — this is a marathon,” said Commerce City Councilman René Bullock, a project supporter who joined local, state and federal officials at a news conference at CDOT headquarters.
On the horizon, as soon as early next year, is the start of four or five years of construction along 10 miles of I-70, from Brighton Boulevard to Chambers Road in Aurora. The CDOT-dubbed Central 70 project will gobble up 56 homes and 17 businesses — mostly in Denver’s Elyria-Swansea, where added lanes and new frontage roads will triple I-70’s footprint.
It’s a project that will require feats of engineering, staging and coordination to keep highway traffic moving while nearly 2 miles of a 53-year-old viaduct in that area northeast of downtown are replaced with a significantly widened, below-grade freeway that carries plenty of flood risk. Because of this, controversy over I-70 has enveloped a city storm drainage project plan that would benefit the lowered highway.
A rendering released in August 2016 shows the section of an expanded Interstate 70 that would have a 4-acre cover on top.
In CDOT’s largest concession to community concerns in recent years, officials added plans for a 4-acre parkland cap over the lowered freeway adjacent to Swansea Elementary School.
CDOT chief Shailen Bhatt said Thursday that federal and state officials welcome the chance to defend the project against any legal challenge to widening the six-lane freeway.
And he asserted anew that he sees the project’s hallmarks — one managed express lane in each direction for 10 miles, with another added in a later phase — as the best chance to accommodate the Denver metro area’s growing population within the fiscal handcuffs constraining state funding.
With the Federal Highway Administration’s blessing, CDOT now can move ahead in coming months with a final bid solicitation for four short-listed teams vying for a public-private partnership. The partner will design, finance, build, maintain and operate the expanded highway.
Not everyone’s happy with it, he acknowledged — perhaps an understatement.
Opposition groups have made several attempts to delay or halt the project, with a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club over federal air quality standards still pending.
The public was invited to view the current Colorado Department of Transportation plans to widen Interstate 70 through the Swansea neighborhood in north Denver Thursday night, April 11, 2013 at the Swansea Recreation Center.
Most recently, opponents submitted input on updated air quality impact projections issued by CDOT during a public comment period that ended Saturday.
Indeed, the timing of Thursday’s announcement was curious in two ways.
Last month, federal transportation officials initiated an investigation of a civil rights complaint filed against CDOT by a trio of community groups, including Dutcher’s, and Earthjustice, an environmental law firm.
The investigation is done, but the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration haven’t issued their findings. Cater said Thursday: “We’ve been given an indication that there will be no substantive findings,” which gave his side of the agency enough confidence to issue the I-70 Record of Decision.
That was news to Earthjustice and Dutcher.
The FHA also released its Record of Decision on the eve of a changeover in presidential administrations, from President Barack Obama to Donald Trump.
I-70 has faced knocks beyond the immediate communities it will affect for what some critics see as fatal drawbacks.
A coalition that includes Unite North Metro Denver long has pushed for a “reroute” option that would turn I-70 into a boulevard while rerouting highway traffic to the north along interstates 270 and 76. That idea never received serious study from CDOT — and Bhatt dismissed that option again Thursday as a distraction that would flood the city street grid with much of I-70’s passenger vehicle traffic, even if most large trucks take the detour.
Other critics contend that any widening will only spur more traffic as drivers who had avoided I-70 fill up the extra lanes.
Bhatt said “induced demand” is real — but he contends that the managed lanes will offset that with varying tolls aimed at keeping traffic moving at 55 mph even when the free lanes get congested.
“I am confident that the four lanes we put down, and the potential for us to add a fifth lane, will adequately solve our traffic issues for the next 50 years,” Bhatt said.
The I-70 expansion has strong support from Denver Mayor Michael Hancock and other local government leaders across the corridor, though some Denver City Council members have become fierce opponents.
CDOT says it has made 148 commitments and modifications to reduce the impact of the project on Elyria-Swansea and other communities.
The most prominent is the landscaped cover, which will include new street connections across the highway. Others include a 20 percent local hiring target for project contractors, paying to remodel parts of the school, paying for some home improvements in that area to improve air filtration and contributing $2 million toward affordable housing projects.
CDOT also must provide relocation assistance for renters and homeowners displaced by the project — though some community groups have questioned where that assistance will be adequate, given Denver’s rising home prices and high rents.
City Council president Albus Brooks, whose district includes Elyria-Swansea, said he shares concerns about its potential impact on health and quality of life because he lives six blocks from I-70.
But he hasn’t joined the council’s several outspoken opponents in fighting the project.