Stretch of Galley Road in Colorado Springs to close Monday for second time this year

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) - Galley Road, between East Miguel Street and Moffat Circle, will close for eight months starting Monday at the earliest, or later in the week.

According to the City of Colorado Springs, during the closure several work operations will occur simultaneously to relocate utilities, replace a Colorado Springs Utilities water pipeline and construct a new bridge.

Drivers should plan for additional travel time and seek alternate routes.

The bridge first closed in January but reopened a month later when the project paused to await the arrival of certain construction materials; many neighbors contacted KRDO 13's The Road Warrior to ask what why the bridge was closed, and they likely will wonder about it again.

The city said that two detour routes will be available:

• West of the closure, eastbound travelers will be directed at North Murray Boulevard to turn either north (left) to Palmer Park Boulevard or south (right) to East Platte Avenue.
• East of the closure, westbound travelers will be directed at Wooten Road to turn either north (right) to Palmer Park Boulevard or south (left) to East Platte Avenue.

According to the city, access to properties adjacent to the utility trench work will be provided. Customers for ENT Credit Union, located at 4545 Galley Road, should approach from the west. Access for businesses located at 4575 Galley Road will be from the east.

The city said that the Galley Road Bridge Replacement Project will replace the bridge over West Fork Sand Creek with a new structure that better accommodates high-flow events in the creek and transportation needs above ground.

More information on the bridge project is available at https://coloradosprings.gov/galleybridge.

The bridge opened in 1965 but is no longer adequate to handle modern traffic loads and creek flows that occasionally flooded the bridge as high as four feet.

Crews also will install a pedestrian-activated street crossing at the connection to the Homestead Trail along the east side of the creek.

"That's going to be an awful long time to replace the bridge, but we like the idea of replacing it because on the other side of the ditch, there has been some flooding," said Joe Crook, neighborhood watch captain. "Also, there's a lot of concern about the narrowness of the road-- especially people driving fast at night. There have been some accidents and stuff over there. They don't have signs directing the traffic perfectly, and they'll come down this circle wondering how do they get out of here. A lot of these people go excess speed limit, and we've got kids over here. So we're a little bit worried about that."