WASHINGTON, D.C. — Colorado is set to get a $501 million low-interest loan from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to expand express lanes on Interstate 25.
The money will add 52 miles of express toll lanes between Denver and Fort Collins, according to the DOT announcement Tuesday.
The project will also create a park-and-ride stop at the Kendal Parkway and Colorado 56 interchange, 13 bridges and six interchanges and rail crossings along the 61 total miles along I-25.
Carpoolers and public transit users will travel free in the eventual I-25 express lanes.
This is all part of a larger $1.6 billion project to improve travel times through the area and encourage carpooling, in addition to alternative modes of transportation to driving, DOT said.
Work begins on I-25 North Express Lanes project
“This loan offers the project sponsors a cost-efficient option to build the improvements and realize benefits now using existing and future toll revenue,” the executive director for the Build America Bureau, Morteza Farajian, said in the DOT news release. “The entire region is growing and innovative solutions such as the one used on this project will help ease today’s congestion and prepare the region for future growth and associated economic development.”
The Build America Bureau is part of the DOT that aims to expedite progress on infrastructure improvements and reduce the costs that states incur on big projects like this.
The Colorado Department of Transportation estimates that the bureau's low-interest loan will accelerate construction for the I-25 express lane expansion and other improvements by nearly a decade and save more than $250 million in project delay costs.
