Growth-inspired road projects continue to snarl area travel
The first half of 2022 saw the continuation of a series of major improvement projects that began during the past two or so years along Interstate 25, the main artery connecting Northern Colorado and the Boulder Valley with the wider Front Range.
Those projects — most of which center on adding a lane and replacing bridges between Mead and Fort Collins — remain on pace to wrap up by mid-2024.
In Greeley, city officials hope improvements to the 16th Street corridor between Seventh Avenue and 11th Avenue could be underway as early as 2024. Preliminary plans there call for replacing the diagonal parking with center parking, widening the sidewalks and intersections, installing more trees and landscaping, as well as replacing the traffic lights at Ninth and 10th avenues with roundabouts.
While business is booming at DEN (or DIA, as it’s more colloquially known), Northern Colorado Regional Airport has struggled, with Avelo Airlines halting its commercial flights to and from Nevada and California.
With the increasing popularity of electric vehicles — which has, of course, coincided with increasingly dire environmental pressures resulting from climate change — communities are grappling with how to encourage cleaner cars.
Broomfield leaders are moving toward adopting new regulations that would require developers of both residential and commercial projects to include specialized parking spaces for EVs.
The transportation, warehousing, and utilities industry cluster saw gains year-over-year in May 2022, increasing 8.2% (8,400 jobs), according to University of Colorado economists.
Air transportation employment realized double-digit year-over-year gains in early 2022 and eclipsed its pre-pandemic peak.
However, sky-high fuel prices threaten to halt the bounce-back.