Motorists struggling with the reconstruction of bridges along the U.S. 6 corridor will see even more activity over the next 10 days.
It starts with this weekend’s shifting of Federal Boulevard traffic to the east onto newly built bridges. The traffic realignment is in anticipation of next weekend’s demolition of the west half of the old Federal bridge over U.S. 6.
“We know how important this section of roadway is, but we figure this is the best time to get this done,” said Matthew Pacheco, Colorado Department of Transportation’s resident engineer for the U.S. 6 bridge project. “We are going to cram as much work as we can into this time period.”
The good news is this 10-day scramble marks the midway point of the $102 million U.S. Bridges Design Build Project.
CDOT and its contractors are replacing six obsolete bridges on U.S. 6 between Knox Court and Interstate 25. Crews are also improving traffic movements in the I-25/ U.S. 6 interchange and eliminating several traffic weave movements along U.S. 6 between Federal Boulevard and I-25.
The project, which began in February, is scheduled to be finished in August 2015.
Traffic will be shifted starting about 7 p.m. Friday with traffic in its new alignment by 5 a.m. Monday.
Federal Boulevard will be reduced to one lane of traffic in each direction while there will be various closures of the Federal on-ramps and off-ramps.
All of this weekend’s work is a prelude to next weekend’s 31-hour closure of U.S. 6 at Federal Boulevard for bridge demolition. The bridge starts coming down at 10 p.m. Nov. 15, and work will continue until 5 a.m. Nov. 17.
“We have 10 busy days ahead of us,” CDOT spokeswoman Emily Wilfong said.
Monte Whaley: 720-929-0907, mwhaley@denverpost.com or twitter.com/montewhaley
