Part of crumbling main road to El Paso County fairgrounds finally repaved
Scott Harrison
CALHAN, Colo. (KRDO) — When the 120th El Paso County Fair begins Saturday, the attractions and entertainment may not be the best thing about it.
Just getting there safely and on a smoother drive is what many fairgoers have longed for, and that will finally happen.
On Tuesday, workers finished repaving a quarter-mile segment of Yoder Road — the main route to the fairgrounds — between US 24 and 10th Street.
KRDO 13’s The Road Warrior reported on the poor condition of the road segment a year ago, which was badly deteriorating and full of large potholes.
The road’s previous condition led many drivers to detour around it, not just during the fair but all year long.
Dan Gerhard, a county public works engineer, estimated that it’s the first resurfacing for the road in at least 30 years, but even lifelong county residents said that they can’t remember a time when the road wasn’t in bad shape.
“Yeah, that’s great!” exclaimed David Wilcox, who was at the fairgrounds Thursday with his daughter, Ellie. “We noticed it when we first came out here last weekend. We came out here to help clean up this building to get ready for 4H. We turned onto that road, and we’re like Oh, it’s paved! That’s great!”
Yoder Road is in Calhan’s jurisdiction, but the county decided to repave it to keep construction consistent with a future county plan to widen and repave the road south of the fairgrounds, where it becomes Calhan Highway.
“We didn’t want to wait until a year or two-and-a-half years before the actual construction of the rest of the improvements happened,” Gerhard explained. “So, we wanted to get ahead of it, and at least make improvements now.”
He said that workers ground up the old pavement to serve as the base for new, four inches of asphalt.
Some residents would have liked the project to include curbs, gutters, and sidewalks, but that would have considerably increased the estimated cost of between $150,000 nd $200,000.
The project was funded by revenue from the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority’s (PPRTA) penny sales tax; the county is a member of the authority, and Calhan joined in 2021 with projects like Yoder Road in mind.