Highway construction to improve intersection

Arthur Fonseca never knows when it’s safe to cross at the intersection of 19th Street and U.S. Highway 6, he said, so he usually just runs.

“Even when the lights are red, it can still be unsafe,” he said, talking about one of the pedestrian crossing buttons, which has been inoperable of late. Fonseca, an intern at the Colorado School of Mines, crosses the intersection about every day.

The public uses the interchange a lot, said Dan Hartman, director of public works for Golden. Bike riders, residents and School of Mines students are all cut off from easy access into Golden because of the highway.

The U.S. 6 and 19th Street interchange project will accomplish two things, Hartman said, which are providing access without the highway barrier and alleviating traffic congestion.

The completed project is to include a four-lane highway, with room to expand to six lanes in the future, a roundabout at Elm Street and a park area with multiuse trails.

The design phase for the project is 30 percent complete, and much of it has been refined, such as walls, landscaping and ramps. Final environmental clearances, such as views, air quality and noise pollution, are in the approval process from federal and state highway governances.

Budget for the project is $ 25 million. The city applied for, and was awarded, a federal grant through the Colorado Department of Transportation worth $ 20 million for the project. The School of Mines is paying $ 1 million of the cost, and the remaining $ 4 million will be paid for by Golden.

Original designs for the project would have exceeded the budget by a significant amount, Hartman said, but a lot of the “cool ideas” from it were able to be modified, which allows the project to stay within budget.

This is an important project for the community, Hartman said. Through the process, three public outreach meetings were held, during which the public was encouraged to provide input. By the end of the third meeting, the city got “clear and consistent” feedback of what the public wants, Hartman said.

Construction is proposed to be completed in three phases –; the first beginning in January 2016, and phase III slated to finish in August 2017. Users of the intersection should expect detours and new travel patterns starting in May 2016, but the area will still be able to accommodate heavy traffic movement during the construction period.

The goal is to have everything approved by late this year, and the city is currently working on finishing the design to stay on target and get the construction going, Hartman said.

Despite almost getting hit by a car making a left-hand turn last month, School of Mines exchange student Nayrana Prado doesn’t believe crossing at 19th Street and U.S. Highway 6 is any more dangerous than any other busy intersection –; especially in comparison to those in her home country of Brazil.

However, she added, if a construction project can make the intersection safer for everybody’s use, “it’s worth it to do it.”

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