Scott Harrison
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) — During the day, the half-mile of 8th Street between Cimarron Street and Motor City Drive becomes one of the city’s busiest, with more than 30,000 vehicles traveling on it.
Get ready for more congestion during the next year.
City officials have announced a $12 million, multifaceted project that will make a number of traffic and safety improvements.
One objective is to eliminate a bottleneck northbound at the Fountain Creek bridge, where the right lane becomes a turn lane onto the US 24 Frontage Road to Cimarron and Interstate 25; the project will remove a pedestrian bridge in that area and add a new right turn lane to keep two lanes flowing northbound.
“And we’re going to do some preventive (bridge) maintenance in order to extend the service life,” said Ryan Phipps, the city’s capital improvements manager. “That bridge structure itself is about 74 years old, and the work that we’re going to do will allow this bridge to perform for another 30-plus years.”
The added lane will include attached sidewalk/trail for improved access to US 24 and the Midland Trail; that project begins later this month and should finish this summer.
Another key phase — starting this fall and continuing through winter — will replace a 24-inch water main between Motor City and Vermijo Avenue, a block north of Cimarron.
“It’s between US 24 and Bear Creek is about 60 years old,” Phipps said.”
Also coming are sidewalks, curbs and gutters where they currently don’t exist on the west side of 8th Street, and has made for messy travel in wet weather for people walking, or using wheelchairs, walkers or scooters.
The project includes improving drainage into Fountain and Bear creeks by installing storm sewers on the Moreno Avenue and Lower Gold Camp Road hills above the street; flash flooding occasionally stalls traffic and deposits large amounts of rock and sediment at those intersections.
Traffic signals will be replaced and upgraded at those locations.
Repaving, the final phase of the project, will happen late next spring or early next summer.
For the many business owners along the corridor, the project is no surprise; they’ve been aware of the possibility since a city study in 2023 that KRDO 13 reported on.
What remains unclear, however, is how construction will affect those businesses and their customers.
“We definitely think it’s going to affect us because it’s going to take people more time to get here more time to get here, maybe it’s going to change their mind about coming here,” said Leo Martinez, a manager at La Casita restaurant.
One of his regular customers, Lisa Cisneros, said that she will try to remain loyal.
“(Construction is) a nuisance, but there’s construction all over this city and we’ve had to battle it,” she said. “So, it will depend on the day, I think, as to if I can get here or not.”
Phipps said that access to businesses will remain open.
“We’ve made every effort to reach out,” he said. “I know that someone always falls through the cracks, but we’ve made the effort to reach out to property owners, business owners. A lot of times when you’re talking about the folks that might slip through the cracks, sometimes they’re employees.”
An employee at the Sugarplum Cake Shoppe & Bakery said that she wasn’t aware of the project but is interested in seeing how it turns out.
“I actually have a map that goes back to 1907, and it identifies the first time that 8th Street actually shows up and is identified as a wagon trail,” Phipps revealed.
On Wednesday evening, city officials will host an open house at the nearby Norris Penrose Event Center, to answer questions and provide more information.
To learn more, visit: https://coloradosprings.gov/8thStreet.
An unknown variable is whether increased traffic congestion on 8th Street could spread to nearby Cimarron Street (US 24) and I-25.
Phipps released the following statement Friday:
“We have designed the improvements to limit the impact to Highway 24. However, we do expect occasional and limited impacts at that intersection, which we plan to communicate ahead of time.“
In other words, traffic backups will be inevitable during the summer travel season, and in an area where a busy city street is close to two highways: More reason for drivers to consider alternate routes and have patience during the project period.
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