Paving of Medal of Honor Boulevard underway in Pueblo County
Scott Harrison
PUEBLO COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) — Residents in Pueblo West can now see tangible progress in the long-conceived plan to build a road connecting this community to the west end of Pueblo.
Looking east at the intersection of Joe Martinez Boulevard and Purcell Boulevard, a path of blacktop winds through 2,300 acres of the Honor Farm Park and Open Space property purchased by the city of Pueblo in 2001.
By Halloween, Medal of Honor Boulevard should be finished.
Gregory George, Pueblo County’s interim public works director, said that paving the 3.5-mile, four-lane road began two weeks ago after a year of preliminary work.
“Probably the biggest challenge on this project has been the soil type that we’re dealing with,” he explained. “A lot of clay and shale. So, the surface has potential to swell. We’ve had to do a lot of rebuilding.”
In 2021, officials announced their plan to build the new road as part of the project to construct a new jail east of the Pueblo Boulevard/24th street intersection; in Pueblo West, the road becomes two-lane Joe Martinez Boulevard through a residential area.
“Around 25% of the new boulevard is in city jurisdiction and the rest is in county jurisdiction,” George said.
George said that crews should finish paving this summer and complete the entire $40 million project this fall — separate from the $140 million estimated cost of the new jail.
While many residents are excited about a shorter route between west Pueblo and Pueblo West without driving through congested US 50 a few miles north, others dread days like Thursday when dry conditions and strong winds create large amounts of dust.
“I’m indifferent,” said neighbor Dale Roxson. “I’ve realized that Pueblo’s got to grow and it’s just a part of growth. Yeah, it doesn’t bother me one way or the other. The construction, of course, is pretty rough.”
The west end of the new road currently has only one stop sign at the three-way Joe Martinez/Purcell intersection, and Roxson said that many neighbors wonder if the future intersection will become a four-way stop or have traffic signals.
George confirmed Thursday that the intersection will have traffic signals.
“Those lights flashing in my back yard, I don’r know if I’d like that,” he confessed.
A local company, Driven Plastics, is providing recycled plastic being mixed into the top two inches of asphalt.
“We are going to be including approximately 82 tons of plastics,” George said. “That equates to about 12.5 million grocery bags.”
In 2023, KRDO 13 reported that the county tested the new material by paving a four-mile stretch of Siloam Road, a gravel road southwest of Pueblo.
Officials chose that road for the test because of its proximity to marijuana growing facilities that produced increased traffic and more costs for road maintenance.
Medal of Honor Boulevard was originally to be an extension of Joe Martinez Boulevard — named after the first Coloradan and Hispanic-American to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor in World War II — but officials later decided to rename it to include honoring the area’s four other recipients.