Broomfield – Within the next five weeks, those who live and work in the U.S. 36 corridor will learn whether they’ll get congestion relief soon on one of the area’s busiest highways.
At a meeting of the U.S. 36 Mayors & Commissioners Coalition on Tuesday, officials updated business and government leaders on the coalition’s bid for about $200 million in federal money to add one high-occupancy toll, or HOT, lane in each direction to U.S. 36 between Interstate 25 and Boulder by 2009.
“It’s brilliant, it’s affordable and it’s something we can actually build,” Boulder County Commissioner Will Toor said of the proposal.
The U.S. 36 coalition said the 18-mile HOT-lane addition would cost about $235 million and its application for federal support is one of nine from around the country that the U.S. Department of Transportation is considering.
To get the federal money, it’s expected that the Regional Transportation District and Colorado Department of Transportation would have to come up with about 20 percent of the HOT-lane project’s full cost.
DOT expects to select up to five winners from the nine applicants by the end of July, Broomfield Mayor Karen Stuart told local leaders.
HOT lanes allow carpools and buses to travel free and charge single-occupant vehicles a toll for the express-travel option.
One HOT lane in each direction between Boulder and I-25 would guarantee quick travel times for buses and carpoolers, Toor said, and officials could adjust tolls for single-occupant vehicles to ensure that a “free flow” of traffic is maintained in the special lanes.
The new HOT lanes would tie in with existing ones on I-25 that stretch about 7 miles north of Coors Field.
The coalition is bidding for the HOT-lane extension just as a $15 million environmental study is weighing two possible larger-scale congestion-relief solutions for U.S. 36 that would cost $2.3 billion or $2 billion, depending on the solution.
The more-expensive of the two would add two express lanes in each direction in the median for use by buses, carpools and toll-paying solo drivers.
The $2 billion alternative would add one general-purpose lane in the median, free for all travelers, and one high-occupancy vehicle, or HOV, lane in each direction.
Either of these options would require taking at least some portion of property from as many as 138 businesses in the corridor and likely result in the taking and relocation of 182 homes as well.
The single HOT-lane addition proposed in the bid for federal money would not require the relocation of any property owners, although some “slivers” of land might be need to be acquired, CDOT’s Sandi Kohrs said.
The state’s transportation budget crunch means trouble for the more-expensive options, Toor said.
“Two billion dollars will not happen in my lifetime,” he said. But of the single HOT-lane solution, Toor added, “This could happen before my kid is in middle school.” He has a third-grader.
Staff writer Jeffrey Leib can be reached at 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com.
