CO 119 Diagonal Highway Transportation Projects Virtual Community Meeting

A virtual meeting about the CO 119 Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and Bikeway projects was held June 27, 2022. The project partners, Boulder County, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) and the Regional Transportation District (RTD) each gave presentations about the current design.

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) provides high-frequency bus service with fewer stops, dedicated bus stations and ways to bypass traffic congestion. When this project began a few years ago, a complete BRT plan was envisioned between Boulder and Longmont. In the fall of 2021, there was only funding for BRT infrastructure at the intersection of CO 119 (Diagonal Highway) and SH-52 (Mineral Road). As of the June 27 meeting, nearly all of the required funding has been obtained, so the complete project is now proceeding as originally envisioned.

The BRT service is included in a broader project called the "CO 119 Safety and Mobility Project." A focus of this project is to make the CO 119 traffic corridor safer for automobile and bicycle traffic. Adnana Murtic, who is the CDOT manager for this project, reported that the goal is to prevent more than 370 accidents in the 20 years after the project is completed. This is with the prediction of a 25% increase of traffic on the highway.

Changes to the intersection of the Diagonal Highway at SH-52, and especially the intersection with Airport Road, are designed with safety as a focus.

The CDOT engineer designing the bike path, Karl Buchholz, described the CO 119 Bikeway Project." It will be an off-street concrete bike path between Boulder and Longmont that will run in the median between the two traffic directions of the Diagonal. This multi-use path will be at least 12 feet wide, and will be plowed in the winter to be usable year-round.

Underpasses for the Bikeway will be built under the major cross-roads. The underpasses will have pump systems to remove water that accumulates from precipitation. Five of the intersections will be at-grade crossings for the bike path, rather than underpasses, including those at 83rd Street and Monarch Road.

The Bikeway will allow Class 1 and 2 electric bikes, and will be ADA accessible.

The intersection of CO 119 and Niwot Road will have many changes as a result of these two projects.

The Niwot Park and Ride parking lot will be expanded. When BRT buses approach the intersection, they will move to the inside traffic lanes and make use of special bus-only lanes called "queue jump lanes," which allow the bus to bypass other traffic on the highway. Special traffic signals for the bus will allow it to move through the intersection separate from regular traffic. The bus will pull into the BRT stations in the interior of the traffic lanes at the Niwot Park and Ride, where passengers will board and disembark. The Bikeway will have an underpass under Niwot road in order to avoid the traffic traveling through the intersection.

Separate parallel projects in the cities of Boulder and Longmont will integrate the CO 119 projects into the cities, with significant improvements to the city bus system infrastructure to accommodate BRT.

When the BRT service begins, the current BOLT RTD bus line will be discontinued and the bus stops, which are currently at the outside of the traffic lanes, will be removed.

The virtual meeting allowed questions from the audience, and nearly 100 questions and comments were made, showing that there is strong interest in these projects. About a dozen questions and comments were related to Niwot.

Some questions and comments concerned the speed limit north of Niwot road, traffic noise and mitigation efforts, especially regarding building more lanes for traffic. These CO 119 projects are being designed to accommodate a future option for High Occupancy Vehicle express lanes, which would increase traffic noise.

Other questions focused on the changes to the intersection at Airport Road. The plan will remove some of the left turns in order to increase safety, which will affect access to Airport and Ogallala Roads.

For more information, see the meeting website at https://www.codot.gov/projects/co119-mobility-design/june-community-meeting