Updating status of two improvement projects on South Academy Boulevard in Colorado Springs
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- Traffic is gradually returning to normal on most of busy South Academy Boulevard, after a year of lane closures resulting from two safety and improvement projects.
It will bring welcome relief to drivers and area merchants who have been coping with the changes, but while construction is ending for one project, the other will continue next spring.
Crews are currently finishing paving and other work on a 3/4-mile stretch south of Chapel Hills Mall, between Bijou Street and Airport Road; a city official said that the project should be finished by Halloween.
But the frightening future for drivers and other business owners is that a similar project in the three-mile stretch between Fountain Boulevard and Jet Wing Drive will continue next year, and won't be completed until 2026.
As KRDO 13's The Road Warrior reported in February, groundwater issues have slowed progress there.
"We still have a tremendous amount of utility work, a lot of water main work that still needs to go all the way up to Fountain," said Ryan Phipps, the city's capital improvements manager. "Installing all that stormwater conveyance that doesn't currently exist on Academy to help stop stormwater runoff. That all has to be installed from Jet Wing all the way to Fountain."
Stacks of drainage pipes at the intersection of South Academy and Hancock Expressway -- an area notorious for flash flooding -- attest to the amount of work that remains.
At times this summer, large pumps were installed to divert groundwater around construction areas.
City officials said that they will try to improve on limiting business impacts on the south section of the project, by applying lessons learned on the north section.
"We're going to approach it differently," Phipps explained. "We're not going to approach it with the brute force effect like we did, first time around. We want to be a little bit more strategic in our construction impacts. We want to get our work done as effectively and efficiently as possible, while at the same time understanding all the needs of our community and our businesses in that area ."
He provided no specifics on exactly what the new approach will be.
Phipps added that crews will fill existing potholes in the construction area going into winter, as potholes have been a constant source of driver complaints.
The only parts of South Academy not under construction are the several blocks between Airport and Fountain, and a block between Jet Wing and Milton E. Proby Parkway.
Revenue from the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation's penny sales tax is covering the projects' $62 million cost -- which includes installing a wider sidewalk along one side of Academy.
Both South Academy projects are separate from El Paso County's widening of Academy between the parkway and Interstate 25, and the work being completed on Academy under the new I-25 overpasses.
