New traffic signal now working at Highway 85-87, Carson Boulevard intersection in north Fountain
FOUNTAIN, Colo. (KRDO) - The Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) is wrapping up a project at a T-shaped intersection designed to eliminate serious "T-bone" crashes.
The safety project started four months ago at the corner of Highway 85/87 and Carson Boulevard. The $2.6 million project will improve safety and traffic flow through a nearby neighborhood.
CDOT turned the signals on Tuesday to regulate traffic turning north from Carson onto the highway, and northbound highway traffic turning left onto Carson.
Each route now has protected turn lanes with medians on each side so that drivers have more time to merge safely.
Fountain officials are happy with the upgrades.
"Motorists need to make sure they look out for that red and that green now, north and southbound on 85/87, as well as the traffic that's going on Carson, that's trying to get onto 85/87," said Robert McDonald, the city's transportation director. "So, those lights are functional and people need to look out for those lights now."
The project provides another benefit -- it repaved northbound lanes of the highway, a half-mile north and south of the intersection.
As many drivers know, that stretch of the highway was in bad shape; crumbling and full of potholes. Crews also widened that segment by adding a right shoulder.
That area is now smoother, nicer-- and more importantly, safer.
The upgrades also make it easier for neighbors to get in and out of the residential area to the west, where traffic flow has been affected by the partial closing of Southmoor Drive in 2002.
The street is on a bluff overlooking Fountain Creek, and erosion from a bend in the creek has made the street unstable.
Kenneth Mull has lived in the neighborhood for 16 years.
"It's the best thing I've seen around here in a long time," he said. "Traffic flow is good, and making a turn, you can go left or right very quickly. Everybody's going, 'Yeah! It's about time!'"
The intersection is south of a shopping area and the Security-Widefield community and CDOT said that the highway receives more traffic than it used to -- partly because it was used frequently as a detour around construction and emergencies on Interstate 25, a mile west of the redesigned intersection.
Because of the deteriorating condition of Highway 85/87, some drivers may be happier about the repaving of the northbound lanes than the new traffic signals and hope the southbound lanes will soon get similar treatment.
However, a CDOT spokesperson said there is no plan to do such repaving there.
"We overlaid the original (northbound) lanes only because of the widened section to fit in the new medians," said Amber Shipley, of CDOT.
