New T-REX Pedestrian Bridges/Asphalt Pavement Warranty/Work Zone Enforcement

T-REX is adding three new pedestrian bridges over I-25 to provide better pedestrian access to future light rail stops in the southeast corridor.

Ceremony Celebrates RTD Pedestrian Bridges

A groundbreaking was held in late September at the Lincoln Light Rail Station for three light rail pedestrian bridges that are being added to the T-REX project.

The bridges will cross over Interstate 25 at the Orchard, Dry Creek and Lincoln light rail stations, linking the east and west sides of the freeway.

They were made possible by a community partnership between T-REX; the Joint Southeast Public Improvement Association; Denver Regional Council of Governments; the cities of Centennial, Greenwood Village and Lone Tree; and Arapahoe and Douglas counties.

CDOT Project IncludesAsphalt Warranty

Colorado's asphalt industry recently entered into a groundbreaking partnership with the Colorado Department of Transportation on a 10-year warranty for the asphalt pavement on a major corridor project in El Paso County.

It's the first time CDOT has received such a long-term warranty provision.

Rocky Mountain Materials and Asphalt was the apparent low bidder on the $5 million project, which will add two new lanes for three miles on U.S. 24 east of Colorado Springsp, using approximately 80,000 tons of hot-mix asphalt.

Work is expected to start later this year and be complete in mid-2005.

CDOT partnered with the Colorado Asphalt Pavement Association in developing the new long-term warranty provision for work in major corridors such as I-25 and I-70.

Safety Enforcement Expanded to Mobile Work Zones

CDOT and the Colorado State Patrol expanded their "Slow for the Cone Zone" campaign this fall to include heavy enforcement in short-term and mobile maintenance work zones.

Preliminary results from the summer safety campaign showed more than 800 citations were issued statewide for hazardous violations in selected construction work zones since enforcement began in early July.

Enforcement includes one officer assigned to the highest risk lane closures. If major maintenance projects - such as rotomill and paving - are under way, additional officers will be assigned to patrol those areas.

In 2002 - the most recent statistics available - 133,700 accidents occurred in Colorado - 2,300 of those happening in work zones. The number of injuries and deaths caused by work zone accidents has doubled in the last year.

Mesa Verde Reservoirs BecomeNational Engineering Landmark

The Mesa Verde Far View Reservoir site has been added to the American Society of Civil Engineers' list of National Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks.

The site encompasses four ancient reservoirs. Morefield, the largest and oldest, was completed as early as 750 A.D. and could have contained up to 120,000 gal. of water. Another reservoir, Box Elder, was created 50 years later and was operational for nearly 150 years.

The technology was duplicated around 950 A.D. when ancestral puebloans living on the mesa tops created a water supply where, even by modern standards, it would seem improbable. The Far View and Sagebrush reservoirs remained operational until around 1100 A.D. when the profound drought struck, leading to the depopulation of the Mesa Verde area.

Though the reservoirs succumbed to the region's harsh elements, the knowledge gained from their construction and operation influenced the creation of other prehistoric systems in the area and the system of acequias discovered in the Rio Grande basin by Spanish explorers in the late 1500s.

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