$700M Floyd Hill project seeks to relieve traffic pain points on one of Interstate 70’s most notorious areas
Multi-year initiative could bring ‘great benefits’ to mountain resort communities, Colorado transportation official says
Colorado Department of Transportation/Courtesy illustration
A multi-year infrastructure project that aims to relieve congestion and improve motorists’ safety along one of Interstate 70’s most notorious areas is underway.
Last month, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) began the first of three phases of its Floyd Hill project, a $700 million effort that will overhaul an 8-mile stretch of the highway between Evergreen and Idaho Springs.
“From a public works perspective, this is huge,” said Skyler McKinley, spokesperson for AAA Colorado. “That area has always been a chokepoint, and it’s a significant area for safety concerns.”
As the owner of Oak Creek Tavern, a neighborhood bar situated in the heart of the Yampa Valley, McKinley has become accustomed to being a part-time I-70 commuter. He said infrastructure improvements in the Floyd Hill area are long overdue.
“Floyd Hill has not kept up with the growth patterns that locals have seen from a community perspective and a travel perspective,” McKinley said.
CDOT scored a major win when it was awarded $100 million in federal funds last year for the project, the largest competitive grant it has ever received from the U.S. Department of Transportation. The money was part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a bipartisan bill that injected $550 billion into infrastructure projects across the country.
The remaining $600 is from state funds, according to CDOT spokesperson Stacia Sellers.
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Currently, work has begun on the project’s eastern side closest to Evergreen where crews are building a wildlife underpass and setting up work zones for rock blasting that will help straighten existing curves in the road.
Traffic may be stopped for 20 minutes at a time due to blasting, though those holds will only occur on weekdays between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., Sellers said.
The existing curves plague motorists’ line of sight and have caused slow-downs and accidents that lead to closures, Sellers said. Such problems are especially acute near the bottom of Floyd Hill, where downhill motorists must contend with curves and a two-lane highway where traffic can bottleneck.
“We can see rear-end crashes within the area, so we knew these issues needed to be addressed,” Sellers said.
Adding a third westbound travel lane is one of many planned improvements. It will be a full-time toll express lane and run from west of Homestead Road (Exit 247) through the Veterans Memorial Tunnels to Colorado Boulevard and Idaho Springs (Exit 241).
“It’s not going to eliminate congestion completely,” Sellers said, but, “If you have somewhere to be, you can get into the express lane and have that guaranteed trip time, which is invaluable to residents in the area.”
The project also calls for rebuilding bridges that have been damaged by heavy use; constructing a 2-mile section of Front Range Road between U.S. Highway 6 and the Hidden Valley and Central City Parkway interchanges; and building an extended on-ramp from U.S. Highway 6 onto eastbound I-70 for slow-moving vehicles to merge.
Work on the project’s centerpiece will not begin until spring of next year. It will be a complete reorientation of a roughly 1-mile stretch of east and westbound highway between Exit 244 for Blackhawk/Golden and Exit 243 for the Hidden Valley/Central City interchange. The transportation department plans to build a new portion of I-70 adjacent to the existing road, which will later be demolished.
The current stretch will not be destroyed until the replacement is completed, which is not expected to happen until the end of 2028, Sellers said.
While the project’s work lies in Clear Creek County, Sellers said CDOT has been in touch with officials in counties between Jefferson and Eagle. Sellers said she expects positive impacts on traffic west of the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnels, which continue to see heavy use.
Between January and June this year, more than 6.3 million vehicles have been recorded passing through both tunnels, according to CDOT data. For all of 2022, more than 12.9 million vehicles were recorded.
“Certainly, there’s going to be great benefits to the ski resorts of Summit and Eagle counties,” Sellers said, adding that I-70 woes can commonly stem from congestion, crashes and closures around the Floyd Hill area.
While CDOT is anticipating minimal delays to day-time traffic, with most work slated for evenings, McKinley said the project is still likely “going to create a lot of headaches for a lot of travelers.”
He advised motorists to plan ahead and, for those coming from the Front Range, explore alternatives to single-vehicle travel, such as CDOT’s Pegasus bus.
“For the next five years, you cannot just cross your fingers, hop on I-70 and hope for no slowdown on Floyd Hill,” McKinley said. “Now is the period where it really, really pays off to plan ahead.”
Daily travel updates for the area can be found on CDOT’s CoTrip website at Tinyurl.com/CDOTFloydHill. Motorists can sign up for updates by texting ‘floydhill’ to 21000. More information about the project can be found at CDOT.gov/projects/i70floydhill.
