Major changes this week as Nevada/Tejon project in south Colorado Springs nears end

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo, (KRDO) — Two significant signs of progress will occur during the next two days on the ongoing safety and improvement project south of downtown, along Nevada Avenue and Tejon Street at the Interstate 25 interchange.

Overnight Tuesday — between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. — the two blocks of Nevada between I-25 and Brookside Street will close so that workers can install new traffic signals and signs above the roadway.

Then, at an unspecified time on Wednesday, all northbound Nevada lanes will reopen — following a similar reopening of all southbound Tejon lanes earlier this month.

The $9 million project started last April and was supposed to be finished by Christmas but was slowed by constant weather delays that began in early November.

The project is now scheduled for completion this April.

"We (also) ran into some complications," said Ryan Phipps, the city's capital improvements manager.

Meanwhile, work will continue on southbound Nevada and northbound Tejon, as well as on the southbound I-25 connector road as crews add a lane there and upgrade an existing bridge.

Crews also are building a pedestrian bridge over Cheyenne Creek on the connector road, as well as repairing the existing bridge on Motor Way between Nevada and Tejon; the construction required closing the bridge last fall as part of a $1.2 million separate project.

The city made the Nevada/Tejon project a high priority because of the frequency of crashes in an area with heavy traffic and significant pedestrian activity from homeless camps along nearby Fountain Creek, as well as from bicycle and scooter riders.

The project's end should be a relief to many drivers and surrounding businesses who were unhappy with traffic changes and impacts, including the removal of the traffic signals at the Nevada/Motor Way intersection and building a center median on Nevada that blocks some direct access to Arvada Street.

"The main point of the project is to be able to get the off-ramp traffic from southbound I-25 to southbound Nevada more easily," Phipps explained.

The city says that adding a lane to the southbound connector road should encourage drivers to end a traffic maneuver called "The Tejon Shift," in which southbound drivers exiting I-25 would turn right at Tejon and make a quick left turn at Motor Way as a shortcut to Nevada.

Other improvements include wider sidewalks and longer turn lanes on Nevada to northbound I-25.

The end of the project coincides with the start of a two-year Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) project to repave Nevada from Brookside, through the Southgate area where Nevada becomes Highway 115, to Fort Carson's main gate.