A proposal to expand Interstate 70 to five lanes in each direction through northeast Denver is attracting the ire of Denver Auditor Dennis Gallagher, who feels the idea doesn’t make sense for neighborhoods and the city as a whole.
Widening the highway to 10 lanes when people are driving less is a waste of the $1.8 billion the Colorado Department of Transportation plans to spend between Brighton Boulevard and Tower Road, Gallagher said.
“It makes no sense to me and is not good public policy to build a 10-lane freeway when it likely will never be needed, may in point of fact be obsolete sooner than later, is destructive to neighborhoods, and a wasteful expenditure of taxpayer dollars,” he said.
Gallagher’s letter is to CDOT Executive Director Don Hunt in response to a proposed proclamation the Denver City Council will consider Monday night.
The draft proclamation backs the I-70 plan, which also calls for the demolition of the 60-year-old viaduct that splits the Elyria-Swansea neighborhood.
The highway would then pass under an 800-foot-wide landscaped lid that CDOT hopes will reunite neighborhoods that have been divided for decades. A park or public open space would be placed on top of the lid, say planners.
The highway is now three lanes in each direction, but under the plan, two managed toll lanes would be added in each direction, said Kirk Webb, CDOT’s project manager.
Gallagher said he supports running I-70 below grade. But the size of the expansion is not warranted.
The 10-lane widening “is not in the best interests of Denver, its residents, and particularly the residents of the neighborhoods: it will not make them real neighborhoods again,” he wrote.
Gallagher supports an alternative plan that would reroute I-70 along I-270 that has been pitched by activists.
However, CDOT says an I-70 reroute could double the cost of the project since it would require 12 miles of widening of I-270 and I-76.
Webb said widening the highway is needed to handle projected regional growth. That will exceed any drops in miles being driven, Webb said.
Monte Whaley: 720-929-0907, mwhaley@denverpost.com or twitter.com/montewhaley
