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.
Gayle Sturdivant, the city's deputy public works director, said that crews have finished expanding Marksheffel in both directions between North Carefree and Barnes.
"Crews will now be working on the median and the west side of Marksheffel," she explained. "So, a lane in each direction will remain closed for that work to happen. We'll probably have all lanes open by the end of the year. The contractor will continue on Marksheffel between Barnes and Dublin, doing earthwork and utility work. But the bulk of that work won't start until next year."
Sturdivant added that crews will realign Tamlin Road -- just north of the Barnes intersection -- with Marksheffel.
"I'd say that we've finished a quarter of the entire project," she said.
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.
"Placing the signal there, gave us time to build channelized turn lanes," she said. "Protected barriers that help people driving in and out of the neighborhood merge into Marksheffel safely."
Left and right turns are allowed at the Zircon intersection but only right turns are allowed at Graphite Drive a block to the north.
Sturdivant said that the city has considered installing speed cameras in the area to help reduce speeding -- a primary concern of neighbors.
City officials will eventually advise those neighbors to access Marksheffel at Barnes, when development east of the intersection is completed and Barnes is extended.
"A developer is going to be doing that work," she said. "It should start soon and continue into next fall."
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.
"We're actually refining our final round of construction costs," she revealed.
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 $15 million widening of Dublin, west to just beyond Peterson Road.