Bridge to Nowhere may link to 550
After more than a decade of planning and three years after the completion of the Grandview Interchange, the realignment of U.S. Highway 550 is moving a critical step closer to completion.
New proposed route for US Hwy 550
Stakeholders have come to an agreement on the route the realignment will take in achieving the Colorado Department of Transportation’s long-term goal to eliminate narrow, windy, steep Farmington Hill in favor of a safer, higher capacity interchange to move traffic up on Florida Mesa more smoothly.
“Everyone was there today: landowners, the city of Durango, the (Southern Ute Indian) Tribe,” said Nancy Shanks, communications manager for Region 5 of the Colorado Department of Transportation, late Friday afternoon. “The independent engineering firm we hired presented the newest iteration of their U.S. 550 design alternative – it was very positive. We’re taking it through the environmental process now.”
There is still a long way to go, Shanks said. CDOT hopes to issue a final record of decision in the spring, and then it will be all about the funding: funding to acquire the needed rights of way, funding for the engineering of the complicated project and funding for construction.
Cost estimates are preliminary. A phased option would start with $75 million to build a two-lane highway, Shanks said. The phased option still would include acquiring all the rights of way, completing the full design and doing the earthwork for an eventual four-lane highway. Completing the project at once would cost an estimated $91 million for a four-lane highway.
Jim Davis, director of public works for La Plata County, said the county commissioners have written a letter to the executive director of CDOT requesting funding that will be made available through Senate Bill 228 for the project. SB228 comes into play when personal income growth exceeds 5 percent annually, anticipated to happen this year, which could trigger a transfer of funds from the Colorado General Fund to CDOT for the Strategic Transportation Project Investment Program. The U.S. Highway 550 realignment is one of the strategic projects on the list. It’s not certain if that funding amount would be substantial, however, as the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights would kick in if the growth reaches 6 percent.
Why are the project estimates so much more expensive than the $77.5 million estimated for the original route?
“Two years have gone by,” Shanks said. “Construction materials have gone up by 25 percent, and a U.S. 160 wildlife underpass, always part of the Environmental Impact Study, was also included in this recent estimate.”
The costs are in addition to the $46.5 million spent on the interchange, which included $28.5 million in state funds, $14.4 million in federal funds and $3.6 million in stimulus funds.
The route has been a longtime coming, with a number of options analyzed by consulting firms Amec and Muller, who partnered on the project. They confronted problems with wetlands, archaeological sites and property owners who didn’t want a highway cutting through the middle of their ranches.
CDOT hired consultant teams to perform an independent review of traffic projections for the year 2035, Shanks said. The projections anticipate an almost three-fold increase in traffic in the area by 2035 and confirmed the need for an interchange at the two highways’ intersection.
“We’re quite happy with it,” said Pat Vaughn, president and CEO of Growth Fund Properties Group, which is developing Three Springs. “This came about because of a lot of negotiations with the property owners and a lot of time out on site with the engineers. Our role was trying to broker a deal, which we saw value in for the entire community, rather than seeing them fight it out in court. If we hadn’t done it, shame on us.”
Eagle Block, which is at the top of Farmington Hill, will be accessed by a remnant of the current route of U.S. Highway 550 that will essentially become a service road.
“We’ve known about this for awhile, and it will be nice to have it done,” said Rita Anderson, a member of the Piccoli family, which owns and operates the business. “We have all these semis coming into the yard and turning around, and people fly around these corners at the top of the hill.”
