WESTMINSTER — Planners worried about strained budgets and the possibility that improvements to U.S. 36 would leave too big of a footprint will unveil this summer pared-down plans for the stretch of road between Denver and Boulder.
Under the original plan, about $2.1 billion would have been spent, and 202 homes and 135 businesses would have been removed.
Planners are now hoping to phase in the 18-mile project, using about $750 million in planned funding to extend a bus rapid-transit lane from Pecos Street to Foothills Parkway in each direction and a bikeway between Boulder and Westminster.
Leaders from cities along the route as well as Colorado Department of Transportation and Regional Transportation District officials, signed off on the new preferred alternative in July. They were heartened that the new plan will help unclog the heavily used roadway while displacing fewer homes and businesses — 60 and 37, respectively.
“We have tremendous empathy for people in the pathway, and we wanted to lessen that impact as much as we could,” said Westminster Mayor Nancy McNally. “What we had before was just too grandiose.”
Backyard bike path
The project may be smaller. But it’s still frightening to Ruth and Ken Johnson, who live on Appleblossom Lane in Westminster.
When they moved into their modest, 1,000-square-foot home in 1956, apple trees bloomed across the street, and U.S. 36 had wide medians that became little ponds for ducks when it rained too much.
“Now, they want our backyard for the bike path,” said Ruth Johnson, 77. She and Ken, 85, raised two kids in the house they now share with a 3-year-old Welsh corgi named Westy.
They also have a lush backyard of plum trees and tomato plants. Just over a concrete sound barrier, they can hear U.S. 36 traffic fly by their home.
“You get used to it,” said Ken, who has six other neighbors whose homes will be bulldozed if the U.S. 36 plan moves to fruition.
He understands that the highway is overused and needs widening. “But this is home to us, this where we belong,” he said. “We don’t want to live anywhere else. This is where we planned to live out our lives.”
By August, a final environmental-impact statement is expected to be produced. The report should detail which homes and how many businesses will be affected. But nobody is going anywhere until funding starts flowing to the project.
Need federal go-ahead
The Denver Regional Council of Governments has earmarked about $750 million for the U.S. 36 corridor, but officials await a final go-ahead from the federal government, which is expected no sooner than the end of this year. When final designs are approved, talks will begin with businesses and homeowners, said Greg Jamieson, CDOT’s regional manager for right of way.
“We then begin to sit down face-to-face with the owners,” Jamieson said. “We want to make sure landowners get just compensation for what they own.”
CDOT also offers relocation assistance for displaced property owners.
Jamieson said an eminent-domain action — which means the property is seized by the government to make way for the project — “is really the last resort.”
Meanwhile, the Johnsons wait for a final route to be plotted. “We’re just hoping and praying it works out,” Ruth Johnson said.
