View CDOT December ARRA Projects in a larger map
Map shows locations of four new stimulus-funded highway projects in metro Denver approved by CDOT. Click on the blue balloons or the two blue lines to pull up the details.

Savings from competitive bids on stimulus projects from the state’s contracting community have given the Colorado Department of Transportation extra federal job-creating money to put back out for more road projects early next year.

CDOT’s Transportation Commission has allocated $16.1 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds – money that had been allocated to previous ARRA-funded projects that came in under the estimated budget – to four additional metro Denver projects.

The four are:

• $2.1 million toward the total $26 million U.S. 85 southbound flyover ramp to eastbound C-470 in Douglas County, a project more fully described here;
• $4.6 million toward a total $6 million concrete pavement restoration of U.S. 287 in Broomfield;
• $5.1 million toward a total $6.4 million “whitetopping” repaving of Wadsworth Boulevard between 88th and 104th avenues in Jefferson County;
• $4.3 million toward a total $5.1 million asphalt resurfacing of Colorado Boulevard between Alameda Avenue and Martin Luther King Boulevard in Denver.

Whitetopping is a resurfacing strategy that uses a thin concrete layer on top of a hot-mix asphalt roadway to form a stronger longer lasting surface in areas of heavy traffic. The asphalt base provides a stronger bed for the thinner layer of concrete than a traditional concrete roadway and in the optimum locations can eliminate the need to completely reconstruct a deteriorated highway surface.

It is a way to make highway dollars stretch farther when used in good candidate locations.

It has been used in several areas around the state including South Wadsworth Boulevard in Jefferson County, U.S. 287 in Lamar, CO 119 in Longmont and U.S. 85 frontage road in Denver.

CDOT has received allocations under ARRA totaling about $400 million for transportation projects. Federal rules required that it obligate half of it by June 17 – a deadline that CDOT and in fact most other states easily met. And it must have all of it obligated to shovel-ready projects by March 2 of next year.

By reallocating bid savings from earlier projects into waiting-list projects like the four above, CDOT is attempting to stay ahead of that March deadline.

In addition, CDOT anticipates it may see another $15 million to $25 million in savings on the final stimulus projects going out for contractors’ bids. That could come through lower bids, budget adjustments or close-outs on previous stimulus projects that may have savings.

In order to move swiftly to re-obligate any new savings to additional projects, the commission has authorized its chairwoman, Kim Killin, to approve projects requested by CDOT staff to be funded through any stimulus bid savings, to be confirmed late by the full commission.