Author: KRDO

Scott Harrison

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) — Many residents of the upscale Flying Horse neighborhood are seeing major construction there for the first time since the first houses were built around 2005.

Three of four planned bridges are taking shape, under which Powers Boulevard traffic will eventually extend north from the Highway 83 interchange, through part of the original Flying Horse golf course, and under the new Voyager Parkway bridge.

The Voyager bridge, completed two years ago, connects to the already-finished west end of the Powers extension to Interstate 25.

Crews have erected the first pillars on the bridge under Flying Horse Club Drive, wedged between a row of homes and the Classic Homes parking lot.

West of that bridge, preliminary work has begun on a pedestrian bridge that will connect to the golf course.

Construction of a third bridge on Ridgeline Drive has cut that street in half, closing it at both ends and requiring detours.

A fourth bridge over Black Squirrel Creek — yet to be built — will be the largest of the overall Powers extension.

As KRDO 13’s The Road Warrior reported earlier this week, the project includes redesigning the Powers/Highway 83 interchange to the south.

Gayle Sturdivant, deputy public works director for Colorado Springs, said the bridges—after completion—will prevent any disruption to traffic through Flying Horse.

“It helps us advance the city bridges so there’s less disruption to the neighborhood when mainline construction starts,” she explained. “And the construction contractor will be able to go underneath them. So, they’re staying off the local roads during construction in the future.”

Officials have planned the Powers extension for decades, so many Flying Horse neighbors have expected it; but some worry about how much noise will be produced by future traffic.

“We’re told that the level of noise will not be disturbing to the community,” said Priscilla Kennedy. “I question that. I’m not sure. My question to the builders is, once the road is completed, will they do another noise assessment?”

Some of the earth mounds formed by construction crews are nearly as high as the roofs of some homes.

City officials expect the extension work to continue through 2030, at a total cost of $140 million.

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Scott Harrison

FREMONT COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) — What’s been a loud, dusty spring and summer in the town of Penrose will continue into early fall.

The Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) revealed that crews found more damaged concrete panels on Highway 115 since their original assessment in April and May.

Wayne Pittman, a CDOT engineer, said crews found more than 200 additional panels needing repair or replacement, bringing the total to over 500.

“In the original assessment, southbound was the worst, and northbound was a little bit better,” he explained. “The surface was kind of tricking them on their initial assessment.”

Pittman said that the average panel depth is eight inches, and crews first expected to perform surface treatments that would remove a maximum of three inches.

“But once they got down to that depth, they decided they needed to go full-depth, because the concrete was just in that bad of shape,” he said.

Crews are currently sawing panels, sealing panel joints, and smoothing the pavement.

Work was supposed to end this month, but has now been extended until late next month.

CDOT had to secure $200,000 in additional funding to cover the extra construction required, raising the project’s total cost to nearly $4 million.

It appears that both northbound lanes of Highway 115 through Penrose are now open, while one southbound lane remains closed.

Pittman said that the project should extend the life of the pavement by 20 years, after which it will need a full replacement of the panels.

The pavement’s age and condition, constant heavy truck traffic, and groundwater infiltration are what led to the CDOT project.

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Bradley Davis

PUEBLO, Colo. (KRDO) – The Parkinson’s Association of the Rockies (PAR) is hosting its annual “Pueblo Vitality Walk” on Saturday to bring the community together in its fight against Parkinson’s.

Participants can register for free at 8 a.m. on Saturday. The walk starts at 9 a.m. from the Pueblo Boathouse event center on the Riverwalk. There will be two loops: a one-mile loop and a one and a half-mile loop.

These vitality walks are what allow us to go from having one class a week to having two classes a week,” PAR boxing instructor Hugh Parker said. “It’s really rewarding to see how they progress from barely being able to move, not having any confidence, to improving their agility, improving their endurance, and just feeling better about life in general.”

Teams have been fundraising for weeks ahead of the walk. The money benefits PAR and its dozens of free programs for people with Parkinson’s in Colorado and Wyoming. PAR is not part of a bigger national organization, and all the money benefits people in those two Rocky Mountain States.

The walk itself is more about community and awareness. Donations are accepted, but not required. Participants can park in the parking garage off of Main Street across from the Senior Resource Development Agency.

Stay up to date with the latest local news, sports, and investigations by downloading the KRDO13 app. Click here to download it from the Apple App Store. Android users can download it from Google Play here.

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Rob Namnoum

The 25th anniversary of 9/11 is this Friday. Air Force head football coach Troy Calhoun, an Air Force graduate, reflects on the events of 9/11.

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Josh Helmuth

FALCON, Colo. (KRDO) — A local high school golfer is putting up some seriously impressive numbers, already turning heads across Colorado.

Cayden Besler is just 15 years old, a sophomore at Falcon High School, and he’s already playing golf like a seasoned pro.

Cayden shot a nine-under-par 63 at the Palmer Invitational recently at Patty Jewett here in town. He also shot nine-under-par to win the CO-PGA JR tournament at Fox Hollow in Lakewood.

He’s currently ranked second in 4A in the state based on scoring average, and number two in the Colorado PGA Cup Series — an invitation-only series featuring junior golfers from across Colorado.

Cayden has won more than 40 junior tournaments since he was nine, already has four holes-in-one, and he’s driving the ball more than 300 yards.

He also recently won a national AJGA tournament in Montrose, finishing 18-under par — ahead of a kid who’s headed to CU this fall on a golf scholarship.

His grandpa is taking him to tournaments around the state — helping Cayden chase his dream of playing Division I golf and maybe even turning pro someday.

Is there someone or something remarkable at your school? Email Josh! SchoolBuzz@KRDO.com

Stay up to date with the latest local news, sports, and investigations by downloading the KRDO13 app. Click here to download it from the Apple App Store. Android users can download it from Google Play here.

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Scott Harrison

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) — The Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) recently completed a project designed to improve traffic safety by reducing crashes at the junction of two state highways.

CDOT performed the upgrades on southbound Highway 83, slightly north of where it becomes Interquest Parkway, where North Powers Boulevard (Highway 21) ends.

KRDO 13’s The Road Warrior learned of the project from Gayle Sturdivant — the city’s deputy public works director — while interviewing her on another topic last week.

“If you go back and look over the last few months, there have been several major traffic crashes where people were going on southbound 83 and turning onto southbound Powers,” she explained.

CDOT’s solution was to add a second left-turn lane and a second left-turn signal on southbound 83; when those signals are green, they stop northbound 83 traffic to allow for safer turning onto Powers.

“There are a lot of people who make that left turn,” Sturdivant said. “Before, it was a permissive left turn, and it was just a signaling. And if it appeared clear, you could go. Now, they’ve got two lanes, and it’s protected.”

In the most recent crash at the interchange in the early evening hours of July 30, a woman and a male teen were killed when their car was broadsided by a pickup truck; such “T-bone” impacts are among the worst types of impacts.

Authorities ruled out speeding and alcohol as factors, and the accident remains under investigation.

The city’s connection to the project is that it’s working with CDOT to eventually redesign the interchange as part of the ongoing project to extend Powers north to I-25.

The Road Warrior will update the status of that effort in a report coming soon.

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Bradley Davis

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) – Artist Dornith Doherty traveled to the heart of the Arctic Circle in Norway to photograph humanity’s last resort in the event of ecological devastation: the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

Part of Doherty’s “Archiving Eden” project is currently displayed inside the ENT Center for the Arts in Colorado Springs. It’s one of three surreal pieces in the gallery’s “Simulacra” exhibition.

Doherty took X-Ray photos of the seedlings and created a larger-than-life visual using lenticular prints, making the images change color and brightness from different angles.

Bill Viola’s 1979 visual piece “Moving Stillness” and Etsuko Ichikawa’s “Broken Poems of Fireflies” round out the exhibit.

Viola’s work shows a digital projection of Mt. Rainier above a pool of water that becomes distorted and abstracted when the water is disturbed.

Ichikawa’s piece is rooted in the Fukushima reactor meltdown disaster. She created blown glass orbs filled with uranium glass material to parallel the uranium used within the reactor before its catastrophic meltdown after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The exhibit is open Thursday through Saturday from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. It has extended hours leading up to curtain call during Theatreworks performances. You can also schedule an appointment outside of business hours. The exhibit is free to tour.

Stay up to date with the latest local news, sports, and investigations by downloading the KRDO13 app. Click here to download it from the Apple App Store. Android users can download it from Google Play here.

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Rob Namnoum

Top prep performances for the week of September 2nd.

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Michael Logerwell

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) — It was supposed to be a fun night.

Christopher Maiorana was just walking back to his car with his son after Sunday night’s Balloon Glow in Memorial Park. He had parked his car in the same spot he always does when going to the event, in a multi-use lot near the intersection of Pikes Peak Ave and Printers Parkway.

“It was a little bit of a shock,” Maiorana said.

Maiorana and several others came back to their cars to find busted-out windows and piles of broken glass.

“It’s disrespectful, and it’s like a violation of a person’s privacy, their property, and it just creates this kind of wave of uneasiness that comes along with it,” Maiorana said.

In total, KRDO13 found eight piles of broken glass in the same continuous parking lot.

“I hope that we can find the people that did this and get some justice,” Maiorana said.

The Colorado Springs Police Department told KRDO13 they were contacted about the break-ins and they are looking into it.

Stay up to date with the latest local news, sports, and investigations by downloading the KRDO13 app. Click here to download it from the Apple App Store. Android users can download it from Google Play here.

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