COMMERCE CITY — Colorado transportation officials want to proceed with a long-planned $806 million expansion of Interstate 270 — the 6.5-mile diagonal that carries heavy trucks and hazmat across north metro Denver — faced wary residents of surrounding neighborhoods this week.
While repairs are urgent and traffic’s getting worse, the last thing communities tucked in and around factories, a refinery, and highways need is more trucks and pollution, lifelong resident Jackie Valdez said at a public hearing.
“We’re already being toxified. Every new semi-truck that comes along I-270 will be toxifying,” Valdez said. “I don’t want I-270 to get huge.”
She and other Commerce City residents have been attending numerous hearings and challenging the Colorado Department of Transportation’s plans to widen I-270, which carries approximately 100,000 vehicles daily along two lanes in each direction, linking I-25, I-76, and I-70. Speed limits are posted at 55 miles per hour, but congestion often slows vehicles and buses to less than 20 mph. Crash rates exceed norms for state highways in Colorado, in part because of the narrow shoulders, according to CDOT. A dozen bridges, built in the 1960s, show signs of deterioration.
I-270 has deteriorated for too long, the result of “underinvestment for over 60 years,” Commissioner Lynn Baca told state officials. Powerbrokers in Denver foisted industry and hazmat onto north metro neighborhoods “because they didn’t want it where they live,” and I-270 facilitates billions in commerce, Baca said – necessitating a fix.
Still, residents and environmental groups want further study. Colorado’s economic needs always seem to trump neighborhood needs and the ecology along Sand Creek, former city council member Kristi Douglas said at the hearing. “Put the ecology first, then the economy,” she said. “It’s not our burden in this community to make sure the economy grows all the time.”
Two toll express lanes, faster buses
CDOT’s current plans call for widening I-270 to add two express toll lanes, one in each direction, where buses would move faster, with shoulders broadened to give emergency responders quicker access. Bus travel time along I-270 would decrease to 10 minutes.
“This approach has worked really well on U.S. 36,” CDOT director Shoshana Lew told residents. “You’ll have the choice to take the express lane or use the general purpose lanes.”
The agency has spent $41 million over a decade of planning. The plans include rebuilding the bridges and multiple improvements beyond the roadway along Sand Creek, such as an overpass for pedestrians and bicyclists, noise walls to protect neighborhoods, smoothed interchanges, and better side roads.
But plans show the I-270 expansion would bring increased noise, brighter lights, and the loss of wetlands along Sand Creek and the South Platte River. CDOT officials have promised “mitigation” of those impacts. Construction would begin in 2027, with work done mostly at night, and last for five years.
Widening for traffic
Metro Denver population and commercial growth will cause a 15% increase in the volume of cars and trucks on I-270 before 2050, CDOT estimates, and the expansion is designed to accommodate that increase in traffic.
In recent years, Colorado transportation officials have turned away from widening highways to relieve congestion and in 2022, CDOT officials rejected a long-planned widening of I-25 through central Denver.
But, in this case, they argue that no action would cause more harm than good. Traffic flows would be safer and faster on a rebuilt I-270, with a smoother link to I-76, combined with modernized interchanges at York Street, Vasquez Boulevard (cloverleaf would be removed), and Quebec/Northfield streets, CDOT planners said.
The state’s air quality analysis concluded that the I-270 reconstruction would reduce traffic by 6% on major surrounding roads, leading to less pollution, said David Merenich, CDOT’s I-270 project director.
The expansion would bring an increase of 150,000 vehicle miles traveled per day on I-270, but there will be a daily decrease of 200,000 vehicle miles traveled on surrounding arterials, including I-70, I-25, and I-76 — leading to “a net decrease” in traffic by 50,000 vehicle miles traveled, Merenich said.
The cars and trucks on I-270 “will move more reliably” with the new express lanes, in part because toll pricing would adjust according to congestion levels, as on other highways along Colorado’s heavily populated Front Range, he said.
Pushback
Several residents pointed out that they live in low-income neighborhoods and cannot afford to travel in CDOT’s toll express lanes, unless the agency allows free or reduced tolls for locals. “Toll lanes do not fit this area. ….. It’s a waste of pavement,” said Keith Rogers, a trucker and longtime resident, who added that noise walls are critical. “We already hear enough noise from everything around us. We definitely have to have those walls.”
Further impact studies could delay the project, Adams County Commissioner Steve O’Dorisio said, warning that “outsiders” opposed to highway widening in general could trigger “a proxy war against capacity expansion.”
At the hearing, O’Dorisio told CDOT leaders that “the people of this community have been neglected for too long” and that “the people deserve to have improvements to I-270 and to parts of their community along I-270.”
These are “improvements that we should have been having over the past 40 years,” ODorisio said, urging state planners to move the project forward to state transportation commissioners, who must approve the project before work begins.
“We cannot continue this status quo.”
