After receiving input on plans for Colo. 119, some designs have been updated to better reflect the desires of the community.
The Colorado Department of Transportation, Regional Transportation District and Boulder County held a joint virtual community meeting in June to show preliminary design plans for Colo. 119, or Diagonal Highway. Boulder County is working on a community bikeway that would go along the median of Diagonal Highway in conjunction with CDOT and RTD’s Safety and Mobility project meant to improve intersections and speed up transit along the corridor.
At that meeting, total cost was estimated at $122 million, of which $91 million had been funded.
Colo. 119 is the highest crash corridor in Boulder County for motorists and second highest for bicyclists, with traffic along the corridor expected to increase 25% by 2040.
With this plan, each intersection along Colo. 119 will see safety and roadway upgrades for drivers and bicyclists. Several intersections will also have a Bus Rapid Transit lane, allowing queue jumping to cut transit travel times in half.
Many of the comments submitted were about the access changes at Airport/Ogallala Roads and the locations of Bus Rapid Transit stops. In response, the project team visited the corridor in August to complete new traffic observations.
The preliminary design proposed that the strip of roadway connecting the two intersections of Colo. 119 becomes one-way in the northbound direction, making southbound Airport Road and northbound Ogallala Road right turn only. Following input and observations, the through lane for Ogallala will be preserved.
CDOT also plans to add new signage and extend the left turn lane on southbound Colo. 119 at 83rd street to make the left turn movement safer. RTD is also in discussions with Boulder and Longmont about additional BRT stops, according to the update.
Also at the community meeting,the project team indicated that only Class 1 and 2 e-bikes would be allowed on the bikeway, not Class 3, which have a maximum assisted speed of 28 mph instead of 20 mph like Class 1 and 2. The project team has since determined that all classes of e-bikes will be permitted because the bikeway will be in a CDOT right-of-way and, per state law, all classes are permitted on bike paths within a street or highway.
Final design work has begun for both projects with completion scheduled for mid-2023. The projects should go out to bid in late 2023 or early 2024.
See more about the projects at www.codot.gov/projects/co119-mobility-design/overview and bouldercounty.gov/transportation/plans-and-projects/highway-119-bikeway-project/.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect that only the through lane for Ogallala Road on 119 will be preserved. There will not be through access for Airport Road at that intersection.
