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Markets
Transportation
Buildings & places
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Location
Denver, Colorado, US
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Client
Colorado Department of Transportation
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Completion date
2023
Ted Hull Ryde
VP, Business Development and Strategy, DOT, Dallas, Texas, United States of America contact form+1 972 588 3208
As the largest highway infrastructure project in Colorado’s history, the Colorado Department of Transportation’s (CDOT) $1.2 billion Central 70 Project reconnected disadvantaged communities in north Denver through prioritizing equity and environmental justice along with bringing people-focused infrastructure improvements that will last for generations to come.
The project, which spans along Interstate 70 (I-70) between Interstate 25 (I-25) and Chambers Road, provides higher capacity for increased traffic volume, improves motorist and pedestrian safety and better accommodates future growth along the I-70 corridor, one of Colorado’s economic backbones. Providing regional connection to Denver International Airport, the I-70 corridor is also home to 1,200 businesses and carries over 200,000 vehicles per day. To help CDOT engineer a better future for our planet and its people, AtkinsRéalis is providing owner’s representation and program management services, including NEPA/environmental clearance support, preliminary design, design oversight, construction management and administration, stakeholder management and railroad coordination.
For more than two decades, we have been supporting CDOT and the Federal Highway Association’s (FHWA) efforts to reconstruct this portion of I-70. Our team has helped manage the extensive traffic forecasting, operational analysis, evaluation of tolling strategies and broad multimodal alternatives analysis and refinement. After delivering the final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in early 2016, the FHWA issued their Record of Decision (ROD) in 2017, ensuring the project met all National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requirements. With all regulatory requirements met, groundbreaking took place in summer 2018.
Utilizing a public-private partnership (P3), the project has reconstructed 10 miles of I-70, added one new Express Lane in each direction, removed the aging 57-year-old viaduct, lowered the interstate and built a new 4-acre park for the surrounding community. It also required a complex phasing approach to limit impacts to the traveling public and the surrounding neighborhood and businesses. The project has fostered unprecedented levels of community outreach and agency involvement to meet the needs of a culturally diverse area in Denver.
It was named a 2023 Engineering News-Record (ENR) Mountain States Regional Best Project in the Highway/Bridge category and received an Environmental Excellence Award from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) in 2019.
A summary of key challenges includes:
- Lowering the interstate approximately 60 feet immediately adjacent to the existing I-70 viaduct which had one of the lowest bridge ratings in the state of Colorado
- Maintaining operations for three different railroads during the reconstruction of new railroad structures over the interstate, including a bridge immediately adjacent to the busiest railroad yard in the Denver metro area
- Design, testing and integration of state-of-the-art tunnel control and command systems, including air quality monitoring, intrusion/security detection, ventilation and active and passive fire suppression systems
- A complex drainage system for the cover park
- Complex project funding sources, including a Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) loan
- Construction through environmental justice (EJ) communities
- More than 100 unprecedented mitigation commitments to EJ communities, including workforce development programs, affordable housing grants, local school improvements, providing fresh food access and local housing improvements to minimize dust and noise during construction
- Advanced environmental testing, monitoring and remediation programs due to the presence of two superfund sites within the project limits
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