{"id":2795,"date":"2018-01-18T03:22:04","date_gmt":"2018-01-18T03:22:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/52.10.1.109\/?p=2795"},"modified":"2018-01-20T00:54:27","modified_gmt":"2018-01-20T00:54:27","slug":"hats-off-to-i-25-and-arapahoe-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/?p=2795","title":{"rendered":"Hat\u2019s off to I-25 and Arapahoe Road"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Cutting the ribbon on the reconstructed Arapahoe Road and I-25 interchange: From left, Michael Lewis, executive director of Colorado Department of Transportation, Greenwood Village Mayor Ron Rakowsky, Centennial Mayor Cathy Noon and Arapahoe County Commissioner Nancy Sharpe. Photo by Peter Jones<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Reconstruction of interchange officially completed<\/i><\/span><\/h4>\n

BY PETER JONES<\/strong>
\nNEWS EDITOR<\/p>\n

With a ceremonial toss of plastic \u201chardhats,\u201d one of the most long-awaited infrastructure projects in the metro area came to an official end last week\u2014under budget and six months ahead of schedule.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been a high priority for the City of Centennial for a very, very long time,\u201d Mayor Cathy Noon told an assembly of press and public officials Dec. 14 in a parking lot overlooking the reconfigured interchange of I-25 and Arapahoe Road.<\/p>\n

Although redesigning an updated intersection had been a gleam in the eye of government agencies for decades, the partnership that finally pulled the project together took little more than a year and a half, start to finish, to complete the $66 million project.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt became a very high priority of mine,\u201d said Arapahoe County Commissioner Nancy Sharpe, who was Greenwood Village\u2019s mayor when she first took an active interest in the notoriously congested interchange. \u201cWe went many, many times to Washington, D.C. to try to get federal funding.\u201d<\/p>\n

As it happened, the project\u2014strikingly not part of the $1.67 billion T-REX transportation overhaul\u2014was completed as a partnership involving Arapahoe County, Greenwood Village, Centennial, the Colorado Department of Transportation and the Southeast Public Improvement Metropolitan District in concert with the Federal Highway Administration.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Traffic moves on the reconstructed I-25 and Arapahoe Road interchange. Photo by Peter Jones<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Michael Lewis, CDOT\u2019s executive director called it a \u201cshining example\u201d of regionalism.<\/p>\n

The importance of the project, located in Greenwood Village, has been tied to a broad range of issues, including population growth, safety, quality of life and economic development.<\/p>\n

More than 250,000 vehicles pass through the interchange on I-25 every day. Arapahoe Road sees about 70,000 vehicles.<\/p>\n

Improvements that were part of the project included a reconstructed highway bridge, three through lanes in each direction on Arapahoe, a realigned frontage road, widening of Yosemite Street, two noise walls, and triple left-turn lanes from the I-25 off-ramps.<\/p>\n

Landscaping of the area will be completed in the spring of next year.<\/p>\n

With the Arapahoe interchange now finished, Greenwood Village Mayor Ron Rakowsky was quick to note that the highway\u2019s often-congested intersection with Belleview would be next.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s coming, folks. Put it on your calendar,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to happen and it needs to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reconstruction of interchange officially completed BY PETER JONES NEWS EDITOR With a ceremonial toss of plastic \u201chardhats,\u201d one of the most long-awaited infrastructure projects in the metro area came to an official end last week\u2014under budget and six months ahead of schedule. \u201cThis has been a high priority for the City of Centennial for a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,12,13,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-briefs","category-skylines","category-features","category-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}