An underpass connecting the east and west sides of Highway 82 at the Roaring Fork Transit Authority’s (RFTA) 27th street station in Glenwood Springs is officially open to the public.
In 2022, RFTA received $24 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, with a chunk of that money going to fund the underpass.
Now, it’s a reality, helping pedestrians, bikers, wheelchair users, strollers, and more to navigate one of Glenwood’s busiest intersections.
Representatives from the city of Glenwood Springs, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT), and RFTA attended the ribbon cutting on Tuesday, connecting the 27th Street Station to the west side of Highway 82.
They were joined by Colorado’s U.S. Senator Michael Bennet.
Sen. Bennet praised RFTA’s work in connecting the region through transit, getting more people out of cars, and their commitment to electrifying their bus fleet.
He said his project is one he can take back to his colleagues in Congress, to show them the impact of multimodal transit and infrastructure investments, and that this is what they had in mind when they passed the bill.
“These kind of investments really don’t know any partisan boundaries, they’re things that people are very enthusiastic about, no matter what their political beliefs are, because they know what we’re doing is making this valley more sustainable for the next generation,” he said.
Bennet also commended RFTA’s commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
“RFTA has been a leader in terms of climate, will continue to be a leader in terms of climate, supporting their work, give us a chance to hold them up as a model throughout the country,” he said.
Glenwood Springs Mayor Ingrid Wussow thanked RFTA, CDOT, and the city employees in the Public Works and Transportation departments for their work on the project, emphasizing the need.
“This summer, each day we saw a peak of over 28,000 vehicles crossing through this intersection,” she said. “28,000 for a community of approximately 11,000 people. This is a regional transportation link.”
CDOT’s Executive Director Shoshana Lew also attended the ribbon cutting. She observed, similarly to Wussow, that the intersection had only gotten more challenging as Highway 82 saw its traffic increase.
“It will vastly improve quality of life for everyone, improving environmental sustainability, as we've seen on so much of the RFTA corridor,” she said. “When we talk to our colleagues across the country about examples of how transit can work in a place like Colorado, RFTA is always at the top of the list for showing that it's not just an urban thing.”
Steve Smith, the founder of Glenwood Springs Bicycle Advocates, was thrilled to see the underpass. It’s a project his group has been pushing for the past several years, as the 27th Street Station is an important connection for cyclists and pedestrians to public transit. He said it feels as though the underpass should have been here all along.
“But over the next few days, as bicycles and pedestrians and wheelchairs and strollers and walkers come through here, it's really going to show itself as a real transformation,” he said. “This was the most dangerous bicycle and pedestrian intersection in the community, and now it is the safest. It's just marvelous.”
He said it was gratifying to see so many representatives, from the federal to the state to the local level, recognize the project.
“Whether you're focused on national concerns or a very local engineer, and the whole spectrum and link those together,” he said. “Everybody recognizes safety as smart transportation. And so they show up and celebrate.”