Lane closures start Wednesday night for construction crews to shift both directions of South Santa Fe Drive that run over C-470 onto a newly constructed bridge, Douglas County and the Colorado Department of Transportation said in a news release.
The shutdown could impact evening commuters Wednesday and some morning commuters Thursday. The lane shift from the old Santa Fe bridge over C-470 will start at 6 p.m. Wednesday and last through 6 a.m. Thursday.
There will be some ramp restrictions to and from C-470 as well.
The best alternative route is to take Lucent Boulevard. Then you can take County Line Road to the north and Town Center Drive to the south, Denver7 Traffic Expert Jayson Luber said.
Early next year, workers will then demolish the existing bridge and begin rebuilding it. The new bridge will be widened from seven narrow lanes currently to nine full lanes, complete with a safety median and new pedestrian and bicyclist path across the bridge. Construction crews will widen Santa Fe from Highlands Ranch Parkway to just north of the C-470 interchange.
The original bridge was completed on Nov. 21, 1968.
This is all part of a larger initiative to make improvements to the intersection at Highlands Ranch Parkway, Town Center Drive, Blakeland Drive, the C-470 interchange ramps and County Line Road. The goal is for the project to improve safety, mobility and traffic operations in the area, CDOT said.
There will also be a new pedestrian path from the Wolhurst community to the C-470 trail, the C-470 trail will go under Santa Fe and the High Line canal will go under Santa Fe.
"Taking advantage of the good weather and being able to pave this late in the year is an advantage to accelerating the shift that will allow us to remove the existing bridge," Art Griffth, the capital improvement project with Douglas County Public Works Operations.
The entire project was originally expected to last through fall of 2025, Douglas Count and CDOT said.
