Progress ‘pretty fast’ on repaving of Highway 115 in south Colorado Springs, CDOT says
Scott Harrison
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) — During the past few weeks, drivers on Highway 115, on the south end of the city, have noticed something they’ve wanted for years.
New asphalt pavement from the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT).
It’s the latest step in a project KRDO 13’s The Road Warrior first reported a year ago — the repaving of six miles of Highway 115 and South Nevada Avenue, between Brookside Street and Fort Carson’s main gate.
That’s why you may have noticed paving equipment parked during the day near the interchange of Highway 115 and Lake Avenue; the paving occurs during overnight hours.
Paving began after crews finished concrete work on some medians, sidewalks and ramps, and when overnight temperatures became consistently warm enough.
Patti Henschen, a CDOT engineer overseeing the project, said that crews will first focus on resurfacing smaller areas before widespread paving starts.
“Progress is going pretty fast,” she explained. “We are patching at the moment. We’re patching some of the severe potholes that you’ve seen around there. We’re doing a four-inch infill for those areas, and then we’re going to come back and do a two-inch mill overlay to have one complete road.”
Essentially, that means crews will temporarily pave over those pothole-infested areas, then mill — or grind off — the old pavement as part of the overall paving project.
Henschen said that crews will also repave around 300 feet into the Fort Carson entrance, stopping at the roundabout outside the security checkpoint.
Crews are paving at night to reduce traffic impacts, but Henschen said that has created safety concerns — not for crews, but for drivers.
“Some of the issues that we get along that corridor are because it’s so heavily traveled,” she said. “We have people that are not paying attention and are getting into accidents. So people could just pay attention to the road and look at the traffic pattern. Shifts could change overnight. So, that’s one of the things that we’re asking the public to be aware of.”
The project includes replacing damaged guardrails and upgrading pedestrian traffic signals.
CDOT expects to finish the $10.4 million project sometime this fall.