The Boulder Daily Camera reports that bus commuters from Boulder to Denver on U.S. 36 may see an average of 15 minutes shaved from their daily travel time by this summer.

The Regional Transportation District is in the midst of two major projects along the congested highway that will complete the first phase of “bus rapid transit” improvements.

A pedestrian bridge that’s halfway installed over U.S. 36 at the Odeum Colorado, formerly the Broomfield Event Center, is scheduled to have its counterpart welded into place Monday night.

In Boulder, the last project among the first-phase improvements — which is expected to take an additional three or four minutes off the bus commute to Denver — is the planned construction of a pedestrian bridge over U.S. 36 between Table Mesa Drive and Foothills Parkway.

Go to the Boulder Daily Camera to see the entire article.

The Boulder Daily Camera reports that on Tuesday, city officials were invited to a private meeting with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood on Friday to discuss the U.S. 36 corridor.

Boulder Mayor Susan Osborne said the city received a request to send a delegation of City Council members to the meeting, sparking “an enormous flurry of excitement” that LaHood might have been sent to announce that the U.S. 36 improvement project had received a much-sought-after federal grant.

Go to the Boulder Daily Camera to see the entire article.

RTD Press Release

Crews for the Regional Transportation District are scheduled to close all eastbound lanes of U.S. 36 between Wadsworth and 104th Avenue from 10 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 21, through 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 22. The closure will allow the first segment of a new pedestrian bridge to be placed across the eastbound span of the highway near Odeum Colorado (formerly the Broomfield Events Center), as part of the U.S. 36 Phase I Transit Improvements.

Starting at 8 p.m., one lane in each direction will be closed to allow crews to mobilize. At 10 p.m., traffic on the westbound side will remain open, but eastbound lanes will close. Eastbound traffic will be detoured from Wadsworth Parkway over to Church Ranch Road and back to U.S. 36. All construction activities are weather-dependent and subject to change.

The placement of the pedestrian bridge was originally scheduled for mid-November, however recent weather conditions have pushed back the date. Crews have continued assembling the two additional segments of the pedestrian bridge during the delay and the overall project remains on schedule. The two other segments, one across the westbound lanes and the other outside Odeum Colorado, will be placed in early 2010.

The pedestrian bridge is the first step in moving the existing park-n-Ride from 120th Avenue and Wadsworth to the Arista Grand Parkade at 116th Avenue, which will occur next spring. The new park-n-Ride location and bus slip ramps will complete U.S. 36 Phase I Transit Improvements, which combine to save a total of up to 15 minutes for bus commuters each way between Denver and Boulder . The next phase of the project will be the joint Colorado Department of Transportation/RTD U.S. 36 Corridor project, which includes highway and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) elements and is partially funded through RTD’s FasTracks program.

U.S. 36 BRT service is proposed to run along the 18-mile corridor between Downtown Denver and Boulder. It will serve Denver, Westminster, Broomfield, Superior, Louisville, Boulder, Niwot and Longmont.

For more information on the project, visit www.RTD-FasTracks.com.

The Boulder Daily Camera reports that the Regional Transportation District hasn’t set a date for closing portions of U.S. 36 to install parts of a 400-foot pedestrian bridge over the highway.

The bridge is part of the new Broomfield park-n-Ride that RTD is building as part of the FasTracks project. The stop on the U.S 36 Bus Rapid Transit line will provide access to the Arista mixed-use development and Odeum Colorado, formerly the Broomfield Event Center.

RTD planned to close U.S. 36’s eastbound lanes to install the bridge Nov. 16, but wet weather has caused the closure to be postponed indefinitely.

Go to the Boulder Daily Camera to see the entire article.

This view looking southwest from U.S. 36 in Broomfield shows where the new 120th Avenue Connection will cross the open field.

A major project gets underway Thursday in Broomfield to unsnarl a traffic mess where the drivers snarl as much as the roads – the 120th Avenue Connection that eventually will allow east-west traffic to cross the Boulder Turnpike directly instead of having to make detours.

The Colorado Department of Transportation, Broomfield and the Federal Highway Administration are funding the $23 million design-build project that is being handled by a team headed by Edward Kraemer & Sons and HNTB. The construction period is about 18 months.

This initial phase of construction will build the major elements, including a new bridge curving over the turnpike about four-tenths of a mile southeast of the Wadsworth Parkway bridge. It will allow east-west traffic to bypass the worst of the congestion.

Adams County has issued a request for proposals to award a contract for the Pecos Street Grade Separation Project. This $43 million project will grade separate Pecos Street from the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern railroad tracks south of I-76.

“This project is one of the Board of Commissioners highest priorities,” said board chairman Larry W. Pace. “We listened to the business and residents’ concerns about trains blocking Pecos Street for hours, and we responded. Additionally, this project has brought together partners to address a regional issue and is a key transfer station for RTD’s FasTracks project.”

The project will provide regional commuter and freight movement improvements and eliminate current safety hazards related to trains blocking Pecos Street for inordinate amounts of time.

The Colorado Department of Transportation submitted an application today on behalf of the U.S. 36 corridor to receive funds available through the U.S. Transportation’s Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) Discretionary Grant Program.

The application, a collaborative effort by CDOT, the Regional Transportation District, the U.S. 36 Mayors and Commissioners Coalition, ten local governments and 36 Commuting Solutions, requests between $160 million and $260 million to build a portion of the first phase of improvements identified in the U.S. 36 Final Environmental Impact Statement.

The first phase of improvements could extend the high occupancy vehicle/high occupancy toll lanes in each direction from Denver to Boulder, implement Bus Rapid Transit service and connect a commuter bikeway (all components of FasTracks) for the full length of the corridor at a cost of $550 million.

Businesses and local governments along the U.S. 36 corridor are hoping for an injection in funding from the federal stimulus program to finally get some relief for commuters in the busy highway between Denver and Boulder, the Denver Post reports.

Through the Colorado Department of Transportation, a U.S. 36 coalition is applying for as much as $200 million in federal grant money. The funds would be used to extend high-occupancy vehicle/high-occupancy toll lanes from Federal Boulevard and U.S. 36 to the Interlocken Loop exit on the highway near the FlatIron Crossing shopping mall.

Planners have finished a six-year, $25 million environmental study of proposed transportation improvements for the 18-mile-long U.S. 36 corridor, and it recommends highway expansion and bridge reconstruction carrying a total price tag of $1.3 billion. CDOT expects to have $711 million of that total over time, but most will not be available until 2021 at the earliest, according to 36 Commuting Solutions, a business/government coalition working for improvements in the corridor.

After years of planning and searching for money, Broomfield’s biggest highway project in years is due to get under way next month. Bulldozers and backhoes are scheduled to get to work on the 120th Avenue Connection in the next three weeks, reports the Daily Camera.

The first phases of the project will build a six-lane viaduct to carry traffic over U.S. 36 and another bridge to carry traffic over Commerce Street. The western terminus is the intersection of Colo. 128 and Wadsworth Parkway, near the current RTD Park-n-Ride. The eastern end point is Wadsworth Boulevard.

Communities in the U.S. 36 corridor will bid for as much as $200 million in federal stimulus money to help extend high-occupancy vehicle/high-occupancy toll lanes on the highway from Pecos Street to Table Mesa Drive in Boulder, the Denver Post reports.

An environmental study identified the addition of one HOV/HOT lane in each direction as a core element in the first phase of improvements for the corridor, along with a parallel bikeway and upgrades to key interchanges.