EXPRESS TOLLANES:Denver Airport Express to toll I-70

The Airport Express project would be built mostly by widening I-70 and moving the free general purpose lanes outward to make room for four toll lanes in the center. They would be barrier separated from the freeway lanes for safety and enforcement purposes. This would require a 22.5m (74') strip in the center of I-70 (4x3.65m-lanes, 2x3m shoulder, and 1.8m of median plus offsets.) Access and egress would be at either end of the facility and by special direct connector ramps to be constructed by the investors at I-270, I-225 and Pena Blvd. Traffic to and from the E-470 toll road south of I-70 would be able to use the Airport-X lanes just east of the Pena Blvd IC.

Tolling will be by transponders only, says James Carroll of FD. Others have said a Toronto 407-style mix of transponder transactions and video license plate photos and mailed bills could be implemented – a possible first for this combination in the US.

With only three interchanges (ICs) in the 16km length the X-lanes will be managed with a variable toll to assure free flow conditions. By contrast the free lanes have 16 ICs in as many km, and hence much weaving that generates turbulence in the traffic flow. The highway is presently mostly 2x3-lanes with some of the lanes ‘auxiliaries’ in the sense that they consist of accel/decel lanes running continuously from one IC to the next. CODOT is in the process of widening I-70 for just a short stretch on the far western end of the segment proposed for the Airport Express.

I-70 presently runs about 135k veh/day between I-25 and I-225 and just under 100k AADT veh/day between I-225 and Pena Blvd. Major delays already result. With extensive growth around the airport and east on E-470 traffic only seems likely to grow.

Salomon Smith Barney will be raising the finance for the project, while Wilbur Smith will be doing the traffic and revenue work. The F&F LLC group says the project is likely to cost about $400m, but says this is a preliminary estimate. ($25m/lane-km, $40m/lane-mi). The project is more difficult than the $130m 91X lanes project in California where most of the construction occurred in an unused grassed median. Nearly a third of the length of the I-70 Airport Express will be elevated. There will be direct connector ramp work at three ICs. And tricky staged construction on the outside through 16 interchanges through which bridging will have to be widened and some ramps moved.

James Carroll, head of Fluor Daniel (FD) Infrastructure’s roads group says the design is a starting proposal and a concept: “I’m sure when we get into the detail of the thing people will come up with ideas of how to improve it and there will be changes.”

FD will lead on the development of the project and Flatiron will lead the construction stage. CODOT have discussed environmental and other permitting work to be done in combination with that of a rail project in the same corridor

Carroll says of projects of this kind: “They have to be a real partnership or it won’t fly. Public officials have got to support projects like this. They’ve got to be prepared to say: ‘There isn’t tax money to do this project.’ We can’t be out there talking about that kind of thing.”

Carroll says F&F looked for a project that was not on Colorado DOT’s longterm plan, but which they might support as necessary: “They have lots of mandates from the legislature to do other projects and little money. We couldn’t see they have any plans to increase capacity here (on I-70) or any realistic chance of financing anything. They seem to agree. They like the idea. We’ve got a good reception.”

F&F’s proposal is that it pay for all work except environmental studies and clearances. It sees a willingness to conduct the permitting as a key test of the state’s desire for the project.

Exec-dir CDOT positive

Tom Norton exec-dir of CDOT has spoken out strongly in favor of the project in the local media saying “They are not playing games. If they were I wouldn’t be taking this to the (state) Transportation Commission.”

Norton called toll express lanes “one of the ways to do these corridors that are not funded (with tax monies).” (DP 11/16/00) Tolls he said might be the way to pay for expansion and upgrading of US-36, I-225 and other highway corridors as well as I-70. A recent ballot measure has required the state to move funding previously intended for roads to education. The express lanes I-70 project is based on the 91X lanes project in Orange Co CA CDOT spokesman Dan Hopkins told the local media, adding: “It has been very successful in California.”

Through Mousetrap and Monkeyhouse ICs

CDOT is itself doing detailed studies of a toll buy-in on HOV lanes on I-25 from the central business district north through the I-70 Mousetrap (real name) IC, splitting at the Monkeyhouse (we made up that name) IC of I-76/I-25/I-270 and US-36 to provide HOT lanes northward on I-25 and northwest toward Boulder on US-36.

Tolls again on the old Boulder-Denver Turnpike (US-36)! This one has legislative champions. It could work in nicely with the I-70 Airport Express project and with the E-470 and NW Parkway toll roads to form a toll express network in this Rocky Mountains capital. (Contact Jim Carroll FD 864 281 8349, Greg Henk Flatiron 303 485 4050, Gregg Mugele I-25/US-36 HOT Lanes CDOT 303 757 9936, Steve Mueller engineer 303 798 2972)