E-470 officials plan to open an $18 million flyover ramp today to speed the flow of the toll road’s northbound traffic to westbound Interstate 70.
The 1.4-mile-long ramp, which took 18 months to build, will handle an average of about 7,000 vehicles a day and should help reduce accidents at the E-470/I-70 junction, toll road officials said.
For the past 12 years, most of the traffic through that intersection was controlled by traffic signals.
A little more than a year ago, E-470 opened a 2-mile-long, $40 million set of bridges and ramps known as the “flyby” to allow northbound and southbound through traffic on the toll road to bypass the stoplights.
The new flyover is the first improvement to offer a bypass of the stoplights for traffic that exits or enters the toll road at I-70.
E-470 will build other ramps to bypass the signals for other turning movements as money becomes available, said Jo Ellen Snell, a toll road spokeswoman.
Opening the flyby in August 2006 for through traffic on E-470 significantly reduced the number of traffic accidents at the I-70 junction, Snell said.
That intersection had 49 accidents in 2005 and 22 in the first eight months of 2006, before the flyby opened, Snell said.
For the first nine months of this year, there have been four accidents in the vicinity of the traffic signals, E-470 officials said.
The northbound E-470 to westbound I-70 turn using the flyover ramp opening today is the busiest turn at the intersection.
E-470 is a 47-mile highway on the eastern rim of the metro area, stretching from C-470 and Interstate 25 on the south to I-25 near 160th Avenue on the north.
On the north, E-470 connects with the Northwest Parkway, another toll highway.
The charge for cars to travel the entire length of E-470 is $9.75 .
About 72 percent of motorists on the highway use electronic transponders for toll transactions.
The balance pay cash, but E-470 officials are studying the option of converting to a cashless, all-electronic tolling operation beginning in 2009.
E-470 has a toll increase planned for Jan. 1, 2009. The amount has not yet been set.
Jeffrey Leib: 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com
