THREE AT LAST! THREE AT LAST! After years of congestion, lanes opening on I-225

AURORA | After years of construction, one of the last remaining bottlenecks on Interstate 225 in Aurora has been removed. In October, Colorado Department of Transportation crews completed widening the interstate between Mississippi and Parker to create three through lanes plus an auxiliary lane in each direction.

Project Chief Engineer Jerome Estes said the completion of that section of the highway means that about 90 percent of I-225 between Interstate 25 and Interstate 70 has been widened. He said the next project for CDOT will be to provide lane continuity at I-225 and South Yosemite Street where bottlenecks still occur.

The last time I-225 was widened was in late 1990 when three lanes in each direction were added between Sixth Avenue and I-70.

Mac Callison, Aurora’s transportation planning supervisor, said the city is already seeing less wear and tear on streets like South Abilene that parallel I-225. “The widening makes travel time more desirable for those trips to stay on I-225 rather than divert off and then take a parallel city or arterial streets,” he said.

Callison added that the auxiliary lanes have greatly aided traffic flow and have also made the highway safer for commuters. “As you get on the interchange, you have a full distance until the next interchange to weave over. That exiting and entering weave movement that wasn’t there before is now there. From an operational perspective, all of our customers are realizing the benefits of that,” he said.

The $63-million widening project, which has been a four-year endeavor according to CDOT staff, has been going on in conjunction with the construction of the Aurora light rail line that will open in 2016 and run parallel to I-225 for most of its 10.5-mile path. Part of CDOT’s collaboration with RTD on I-225 also entails replacing the Yale Avenue bridge over the highway, to accommodate RTD’s extension of the light rail from Parker Road to East Iliff Avenue. “The CDOT project did portions of light rail from Nine Mile to the new Iliff Station,” Estes said. “CDOT did the concrete and steel substructure work. It’s been a great partnership.”

Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan said I-225’s improvements are crucial for the city.

“That corridor is, at least in the near future, the entire key to the longterm economic success of the city,” he said. “It helps to move people from the south and north to Aurora. We have a medical district that’s growing up along I-225. We now have a light rail line paralleling most of I-225 that will give us more housing, entertaiment, restaurant, and retail options. Now that we’ll have the tie-in with the light rail, I-225 will connect Aurora in more ways than one to the metro area.”