Denver Freeway Widening Plans on Hold

Plans to widen Interstate 25 through Denver have been shelved by the Colorado Department of Transportation.

Michael Booth reports for the Colorado Sun: “Highway officials have given up on expanding lanes to unclog I-25 through central Denver in coming years, saying there’s no money for it, acknowledging a reality that environmental and neighborhood justice groups had been pushing them to recognize.” 

As recently as 2019, the state’s plans to widen the freeway seemed primed for approval, pitched as a solution for the aged highway’s poor safety record, with 1,000 crashes every year on a stretch of the highway between Alameda Avenue and 20th Street.

Signs of trouble for the project first started to appear early in the pandemic, when the state was cutting transportation project funding to address the funding shortfall created by the public health crisis.

According to Booth, the new plan will still make some changes along the route, such as “moving rail lines from next to the highway at Alameda Avenue to 6th Avenue, and [redeveloping] the sprawling former rail repair areas at Burnham Yard to emphasize multimodal transit and reconnecting west and east communities split by the Valley Highway.”