Northwest Parkway in fast lane

Colorado’s northwest region isn’t just bedroom communities anymore.

Boulder isn’t just a hippie college town, Broomfield isn’t just clusters of tract homes, and Louisville, Lafayette and Superior are much more than mining towns. Time was that green space was all that bordered U.S. 36. There wasn’t much to Westminster, Broomfield or Louisville back then. For that matter, there wasn’t much on Dillon Road or 96th Street either.

Broomfield Mayor Bill Berens, up for re-election this month, was excited when Broomfield finally got a McDonald’s in city limits. It meant he wouldn’t have to take his son to Arvada for a Happy Meal.

That was then.

Broomfield now is heading to become its own county with FlatIron Crossing, expected to rival Park Meadows mall in south Denver; Interlocken business park, with potential to bring 25,000 jobs to the region upon completion; and the Omni hotel, which fetches up to $200 per night for a room.

Boulder, because of the high price and shrinking availability of commercial and industrial space and the increasing cost of housing, is losing businesses and residents that relocate to Westminster, Louisville and Lafayette. An imbalance of homes to jobs in Boulder means more people are commuting.

Growth in the northwest region is becoming evident on I-25, U.S. 36 and arterial corridors, such as Dillon Road in Louisville, and 120th Avenue, which travels through Broomfield and Westminster. Cars slow to a crawl during peak hours.

The Northwest Parkway – given the number of businesses and people moving to the area who won’t give up their cars – was inevitable.

Getting on the road

The Northwest Parkway will run from Colo. 128, connecting U.S. 36 at the 96th Street interchange, to I-25 at about 158th Street. The proposed 10-mile toll road will create four-fifths of a ring-road circling the metro Denver area. The last segment of the ring-road, which is an area of intense debate, would run south from Colo. 128 through Golden to connect with Colo. 93.

The Northwest Parkway will consist of four lanes, two in each direction, with a center median, which, if traffic dictates, could be converted to HOV lanes or space for a rail line in the future. Proponents say the parkway will ease suburb-to-suburb travel, unlock gridlock on city streets and prevent spillover onto county roads.

Businesses also would benefit from the ring-road’s creation because it would open up easier, faster access to Denver International Airport, says Steve Hogan, executive director of the Northwest Parkway Authority, an organization formed this year to oversee the parkway’s funding and construction.

“It’s highly unlikely you can get there in anything less than 45 minutes,” he says. “In many cases, it’s an hour, maybe even an hour and 10 minutes. But when the Northwest Parkway and E-470 are done, you’ll be able to get there in 25 minutes.”

And that’s probably a bonus for Broomfield businesses, such as Sun Microsystems and Level 3, which is moving its worldwide headquarters to Interlocken, and will have easy access to the parkway from 96th Street.

Opposition to mitigation

Boulder County officials, however, have been longtime opponents of the parkway. Roads bring growth, they said.

But growth came anyway.

Boulder County in 1998 accounted for 19 percent of the growth — the third highest population increase — in the eight-county metro Denver area, according to the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG). Arapahoe and Douglas counties grew 27.4 percent and 21 percent, respectively.

Back in 1991, before the population started outpacing DRCOG’s projections, Boulder County voters rejected the proposed W-470, a roadway from Golden to I-25, by a 4-to-1 margin. But these days, the Boulder County commissioners concede that little will stop the Northwest Parkway’s construction. So the commissioners did what they believed was the next best thing. They entered into a intergovernmental agreement with Broomfield, Louisville and Lafayette, which stipulated that the majority of the land bordering the parkway would be open space and farmland.

“The highway is going to get built,” says Boulder County Commissioner Ron Stewart, “so what you start working on is how do you mitigate the worse effects that it might have on the county, rather than how do you just totally oppose it being built.”

Numbers ever increasing

The project is still in the “preliminary feasibility investigation” phase, Hogan says. A Nov. 9 meeting at Jefferson County Airport has been scheduled to review environmental assessments related to two locations intersecting the parkway at Colo. 287 and I-25 where the parkway meets E-470.

Carter Burgess Inc., a national planning, engineering, architecture and construction management consulting firm, also is working on a traffic study to determine the amount of toll revenue anticipated to be collected, and Morrison Knudsen, the Boise, Idaho-based, firm that won the design-build contract, is finishing up a report with construction cost estimates. Following will be the “final feasibility phase,” during which wetlands permits, interchange design approvals and air quality assessments are sought.

From that information, the Northwest Parkway Authority will put together bond packages and look for investors to buy bonds in increments of $5 million to $10 million. Bonds could be sold as early as Oct. 1, 2000, and “we would literally start construction the same day,” Hogan says. If everything stays on schedule, the parkway would open during summer 2003.

“That is as fast as it can be done,” Hogan says. “It can’t be done any faster.”

Preliminary traffic studies estimate that 7,000 vehicles per day will travel along the Northwest Parkway, but that’s excluding the number of workers and people at FlatIron Crossing and the Omni hotel, and it doesn’t consider Level 3 headquarters at Interlocken and the Sun Microsystems expansion.

“The updated models that we will use will clearly show at least five-digit figures per day in terms of traffic rather than four-digit figures per day on opening day,” Hogan says.

The parkway’s cost is an estimated $175 million to $200 million, but the bond issuance will be higher — $225 million to $250 million — to cover unexpected, additional construction costs. The cost to pay off those bonds is about double — approximately $500 million.

There was no other way to do it, Hogan says. People in the area aren’t likely to approve a tax increase to pay for the parkway, and it will be some time before federal and state money frees up to foot the cost. Just look at how much time and advertising dollars went into convincing voters to support two referenda for bonds to speed up transportation improvements in the state, he says. None of those improvements will be in Boulder County.

“What we’re doing is essentially is 100 percent financing,” he says. “The only thing we’re doing is paying for these preliminary studies, which are going to total in the neighborhood of about $5 million, related to a $200 million project. That’s less than a 21/2 percent downpayment if you will.”

Once feared, now revered

Louisville Mayor Tom Davidson, once opposed to W-470, now sees the Northwest Parkway as a necessary path. Louisville sees a lot of traffic, especially on Dillon Road. The city is home to Storage Technology Corp., one of the largest employers in Boulder County, and people, whether they’re on their way to work in city limits or in neighboring Broomfield, often cut through old town Louisville to get to work.

That’s no good.

“The eastern section of the city of Louisville are basically places built 50 to 120 years ago,” Davidson says. “The road system there isn’t really designed for cars. It’s designed for horses.”

Sure, people will have to pay to use the parkway, but consider the alternative.

“Roads are going to be difficult to take because of the amount of traffic that’s going to be on them,” he says. “It’s going to be pretty much a no-brainer choice of paying a couple of bucks and being able to drive 65 mph or bumping along at 25 mph.”

Officials in Erie and Westminster, although the parkway doesn’t directly cross their borders, also believe the parkway is an improvement and beneficial to their cities.

Westminster will have new business developments at I-25 and 136th Street, an interchange near the eastern end of the Northwest Parkway planned with Thornton and Broomfield officials. Susan Grafton, Westminster’s economic development manager, says the parkway also will be an advantage for Westmoor Technology Park, which attracted Internet developer Requisite Technology from Boulder, and for Jeffco Airport, a base for corporate aircraft in Broomfield.

“We have traffic jams on U.S. 36 and traffic jams on I-25 because there are no alternative ways to everybody going in the same direction. From a regional standpoint, we can all get around a whole lot better, not have the traffic congestion and, therefore, not have quite as much pollution.”

Erie residents will be able to access the parkway from an interchange at Lowell Boulevard. Erie Mayor Vic Smith says the parkway also helped to avert an annexation war with Broomfield, “which we were losing anyway.” Now Erie and Broomfield together are hoping to plan a sub-area near the parkway north of Colo. 7 and west of I-25.

“Transportation corridors mean economic growth,” Smith says. “Here’s one place where we do not have to bear the direct burden of the roadway going through Erie, but we can derive many of the benefits of it.

“This is a no-brainer for me,” he adds. “The impacts are obvious.”

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