Feds budget money for 104th Avenue bottleneck

Improvement along 104th Ave. and Interstate 270 at Vasquez Boulevard are two of six Colorado projects that will share $62.9 million in federal money, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced June 26.

The grants are part of the $7.2 billion Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity discretionary grant program funding 550 projects nationwide.

The program supports a diverse slate of communities with projects of local and regional significance. Funding is split equally between urban and rural areas, and most of the grants support regions defined as historically disadvantaged or areas of persistent poverty. It’s meant to help state and local governments pursue multi-modal and multi-jurisdictional projects that are more difficult to fund through other grant programs.

“After decades of underinvestment, the condition of America’s infrastructure is now finally getting better instead of worse – and today we proudly announce our support for 148 more projects in communities of every size across the country,” Buttigieg said in a press statement.

Thornton-Commerce City bottleneck

The program earmarks $25 million to pay for final design, right-of-way, and construction of Complete Street enhancements on 104th Avenue between Colorado Boulevard to the South Platte River Bridge.

Thornton, Commerce City and Adams County have been working on widening that stretch of the road, which is also State Highway 44. The road is mostly two lanes between Colorado Boulevard in Thornton and the intersection with Highway 85 in Commerce City but wider on either side of that bottleneck. Plans call for widening the road to five lanes — two lanes in either direction with a center turn lane or median.

Engineers have drawn basic maps of the entire project and they presented those at an open house meeting Nov. 29 at Thornton’s Carpenter Park Recreation Center.

Those designs show the basic layout of the road expansion, complete with new intersections, bike lanes and sidewalks.. Engineers then said that with full funding, the project could get underway in 2025.

The new grants would also set aside $4.8 million to pay for design work for the reconstruction of the I-270 and Vasquez Boulevard cloverleaf interchange, implementing a new pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure in the area and enhancing the infrastructure through the interchange.

The plan would include two grade-separated pedestrian tunnels, ADA sidewalks and ramps, implementation of two water quality ponds on the western side of the interchange and new guardrails.

According to the press release the Department received almost $13 billion in requests for the money available this year.