I’m so confused. All these years I thought that when it came to interstate highways and roads and such, it was all about the money.
I was so wrong. At least that’s the impression I have now after looking more closely into how Colorado and the feds want to solve the problem about what to do with one of the state’s most impressive eyesores: the elevated I-70 bridge from Colorado Boulevard to the Mousetrap.
Residents and officials from Denver, the Colorado Department of Transportation and even the feds have clucked their tongues over what a sorrow this narrow, dilapidated, congested creature the 1.2 mile-long bridge is. The monstrosity is a gift of the Eisenhower Administration, which helped to create the U.S. interstate highway system and birthed the viaduct in the early 1960s, when I-70 became a reality.
Even after throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at this thing since it was built, to keep the mess from falling down, highway hoo-haws have determined that in about 10 years, it’ll finally be toast.
And what’ll it cost to make it all good? About a billion dollars or so.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
That’s right. For the same amount of money that it would take to turn almost all of the congested I-70 imbroglio from Idaho Springs to Loveland Pass into something that will preserve Colorado’s $10-billion-a-year mountain tourism industry, the state could instead build a new mile-long mess through a very messy part of Denver.
And it will cost even more than that, much more, if one pesky plan comes to fruition: a tunnel. That’s right, one plan calls for “burying” this portion of I-70 through the stockyards, the railroad yards, the warehouses, the grain elevators and even along the Purina dog-food factory, pumping up the price by another quarter of a billion dollars or so, to help improve the neighborhoods along this part of the highway.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
I’m not making any of this up. There are real plans with real artist conceptions of a “deck” over I-70 near that fabulous Pilot truck-stop and Wendy’s drive-thru. You know the one. It’s just down from the old Aurora Sentinel printing plant and the weekly motel that’s been there for longer than the road has. The illustrations of the deck show it covered with grass and happy little children kicking soccer balls and happy little drivers motoring along underneath.
Is everybody high? Am I missing something here? Is this the same part of Denver that a smelter poisoned with lead and God-only knows-what-else for decades in Globeville? The same place that the City of Denver has ignored or actively tried to turn into a warehouse wasteland for generations? A place where the smell of God-only-knows-what-they’re-cooking inside that dog-food factory suffocates the entire area with the blessings of Denver City Hall?
Suddenly, Denver and the CDOT are concerned about quality of life and getting a grassy place for kids to kick a ball for a cool $1.2 billion or so.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
I thought it was all about the money. At least that’s what state highway officials have been telling me for a couple of decades when I ask why I-225, one of the busiest highways in the state, couldn’t be widened. Or why the “landscaping” plan for I-225 through Aurora looked like it had been cooked up by the chain-link fence, asphalt and concrete industries.
“No money,” is what I’ve heard for years and years and years. Colorado is risking its No. 1 economic generator by allowing the I-70 mountain corridor to grind to a sclerotic halt because there’s no money for more lanes or a rail system or new tunnel bores, but there appears to be money to build billion-dollar tennis courts near the Conagra conundrum behind Colorado Boulevard.
Give me a break. If Denver wants an urban renewal project, good for them, but they need to pay for it themselves. Expecting everyone else in Colorado to do without for the sake of reparations for driving over forgotten Denver neighborhoods generations ago is crazy talk. Ask Boston how bad an idea big digs are. Either rebuild the thing at ground level, or move it north on a new alignment through new marginal neighborhoods, creating a new generation of misery.
But do it as inexpensively as possible so the thousands of miles of highway needs in Colorado, and Aurora, have a chance to make the list when everyone’s done figuring out what to do with Denver’s Miserable Mile.
Reach Editor Dave Perry at 303-750-7555 or dperry@aurorasentinel.com
And all this because the people who were in office didn’t even have the foresight of a monkey.