Two major road projects in Adams County finished up this week, with reconstruction of the interchange at Interstate 76 and U.S. 85 now complete and the a done deal.
The Colorado Department of Transportation said the biggest improvement drivers will notice at I-76 and U.S. 85 is the tempered curve for those traveling west on I-76, as well as an additional lane for southbound U.S. 85 traffic accessing East 96th Avenue.
The previous curve on westbound I-76 had a high accident rate, including several truck roll-overs, CDOT said. The $10 million interchange project, which got underway in October 2016, also added a second lane for southbound U.S. 85 traffic merging on to I-76.
More than 80,000 vehicles a day travel that section of I-76, CDOT said, and approximately 12,000 of them are large trucks. The concrete pavement at the interchange was scraped to the ground and re-poured.
In Commerce City, officials this week celebrated the completion of the Tower Road widening project. The road, between East 80th and East 103rd avenues, was expanded from two lanes to four and now features bike lanes, sidewalks and a walking path.
The road widening work, which began 18 months ago and cost $51 million, comes at a time when . Tower Road is heavy with airport traffic and provides access to two major satellite parking lots for DIA.