Weekend overnight bridge closures on Interstate 25 in Colorado Springs delayed until next week
Scott Harrison
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) — Drivers now have an extra week to prepare for repair work that will close the I-25 bridge over Garden of the Gods Road overnight for several weekends.
The Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) said that the repairs — originally scheduled to start Friday night — have been rescheduled to next Friday night because a section of the bridge to be repaired wan’t prepared in time.
CDOT will repair the bridge deck, widen it and replace expansion joints at both ends.
The full bridge closures will begin next weekend (April 10-13) on the northbound side, followed by a similar closure southbound on the following weekend (17-19).
Two more full closures, one in each direction, are scheduled for the first two weeks of May.
“The majority of the work will be completed Friday,” said Patti Henschen, a CDOT engineer. “And all of these are contingencies, so to speak. Weekends number 3 and 4, it’s in the event that we do not finish the northbound work this coming weekend, and we don’t finish the southbound work next weekend.”
The closure hours are between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m., overnight on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
Drivers also should be aware that during the first closures next weekend, the northbound I-25 entrance ramp from Fillmore Street will be closed all three nights.
“That’s to reduce traffic volume in the work zone and make it safer,” Henschen explained. “The contractor can only do this work in the fall and spring. We’re doing it now because it’s when there’s the least traffic on I-25 — between spring break and summer travel season.”
Centennial Boulevard and Nevada Avenue are the primary detours around the closures.
The bridge work is included in CDOT’s overall $62 million project to improve the freeway between Fillmore Street and Garden of the Gods Road.
It started in the fall of 2023 and should be completed late this summer.
Crews have replaced the twin bridges on Ellston Street, widened lanes, and improved drainage; currently under construction are the center median concrete wall, and acceleration/deceleration lanes designed to reduce congestion and improve traffic flow.
Meanwhile, city officials are upgrading traffic signals at two intersections immediately east of I-25 — Northpark Drive and Mark Dabling Boulevard.
For more information, visit: https://www.codot.gov/projects/i25gogfillmorelanes/about.