![]() ![]() But he characterizes highway expansions as giving car addicts “another hit.”Īfter speaking recently at a suburban mobility summit in Lone Tree, Toderian said about Peña: “Know that going in, you’re not going to reduce congestion. “If you look at it from the perspective of the status quo, it will always feel like the right thing to do is to widen the road,” said Brent Toderian, a city planning consultant based in Vancouver, Canada. It connects the airport to downtown Denver’s Union Station 23 miles away. Transit advocates and urbanists see an obvious alternative in the A-Line, which has become a popular way to reach DIA since it opened in 2016. ![]() Spokeswoman Jordan Fuja told The Denver Post that the mayor, who took office last month, “is waiting to assess the study results” from DIA’s master plan. Johnston has staked out a cautious position on Peña, saying during the mayoral campaign that highway expansions shouldn’t be the city’s primary strategy to address traffic and that he would work to expand transit options. That money, part of a regional package of project selections for the next four years that’s up for a final vote by DRCOG’s board Wednesday, is set to go toward the initial $18.5 million in Peña planning costs. Last week it sent a petition with 294 signatures to new Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, asking him to withdraw the city’s request to the Denver Regional Council of Governments for $5 million in federal money for Peña Boulevard and redirect it to design work for a Broadway bike lane extension. “I don’t see how we address both the residential and the economic needs of Montbello and Green Valley Ranch - and also regional needs - without widening it one additional lane,” said Denver City Councilwoman Stacie Gilmore, who represents those far-northeast neighborhoods on either side of Peña.īut freeway widening would amount to “climate arson,” in the charged words of a group called the Denver Bicycle Lobby. Talk to local officials, and road improvements seem inevitable. Some of that initial project money also is earmarked for the development of strategies to increase the use of transit and other alternatives to driving. With construction at least four years away, DIA, which likely would pay for most of the costs, will sort through the options in a Peña Boulevard master plan that’s due by early next year. ![]() The still-evolving plans call for a “managed lane” between Interstate 70 and E-470, likely in the form of a toll lane or a transit-only lane, along with safety upgrades for the existing roadway. ![]() The project would widen the first six miles of Peña, where the freeway still has two lanes in each direction. This week a metro Denver planning organization is poised to join with DIA to commit the first $18.5 million toward the planning and design of a potential $277 million expansion project. What to do about Peña also has raised unique questions - over how to serve both DIA passengers and local commuters, the difficulty of improving transit connection gaps in the largely suburban neighborhoods nearby in Denver and Aurora, and, most of all, whether an investment in the parallel A-Line train could take more strain off the freeway. It’s not even rush hour - it’s just a typical weekday on Peña Boulevard.Ĭongestion now builds at more times of the day as Peña, the original access road to Denver International Airport, struggles to keep up with two engines of growth: the airport itself, which is charting record passenger traffic, and the once-sparsely populated plains along Peña that have seen an explosion of housing and jobs over the nearly three decades since DIA opened.īut as DIA and city leaders work out plans for a likely road expansion later this decade, what seems to some nearby residents like a measured fix has sparked fierce debate, not least because more capacity usually means more tailpipe emissions. Just after noon, the taillights ahead warn of another sudden midday slowdown. ![]()
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