Changes on Marksheffel Road in Colorado Springs as first year of widening project winds down

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- Drivers are adjusting to changes this week along a major corridor on the city's northeastern border where workers are finishing the first year of a three-year widening project.

Work began last summer on the nearly three-mile stretch of Marksheffel Road between North Carefree Circle to the south, and Dublin Boulevard to the north; it will eventually have two lanes in both directions.

It's an area exploding in traffic congestion, population growth and home construction in and around the Banning Lewis Ranch subdivision.

Drivers should be aware of changes this week that will affect three of the four major intersections along that segment of Marksheffel.

The Barnes Road intersection just reopened Wednesday -- more than two months after it closed -- so that workers could lower it by seven feet, to match the new Marksheffel alignment.

During the overnight hours, Marksheffel will be closed between North Carefree and Stetson Hills Boulevard, allowing workers to remove temporary concrete barriers, re-stripe Marksheffel lanes and move traffic to a new lane configuration.

As part of the traffic switch, a temporary signal installed at the Zircon Drive intersection was removed Tuesday night; KRDO 13 reported last month about how residents in the adjacent neighborhood requested the signal because of safety concerns after a series of crashes that included a fatal crash in July.

City officials will eventually advise those neighbors to access Marksheffel at Barnes, when development east of the intersection is completed and Barnes is extended.

The project has also raised a part of Marksheffel -- that was susceptible to flash flooding -- above the flood plain due to several drainage improvements.

But even after all that's been done so far, there are still two years remaining on the project that will cost between $50 million and $60 million.

Eventually, plans call for extending Marksheffel farther north to connect to Black Forest Road, as the latter is currently being widened north of Woodmen Road.

The Marksheffel project also ties in with the upcoming widening of Dublin, west to just beyond Peterson Road.