DOT Awards $106 Million Loan to Denver's Express Lanes
Managers of a new express lane project in the Denver metropolitan region were awarded a federal loan worth more than $106 million, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao announced this month.
The loan is meant to finance the completion of the C-470 express lanes along 12 1/2 miles of C-470, between Interstate 25 and Wadsworth Boulevard in Douglas County.
The loan will fund westbound express toll lanes from I-25 to the University Boulevard off-ramp, near Colorado Boulevard. It also would fund the westbound auxiliary lanes between ramps from University Boulevard to Platte Canyon Road/Chatfield Avenue and from Yosemite Street to Quebec Street. And it would fund one eastbound express toll lane from Wadsworth Boulevard to I-25/E-470.
Construction led by the Colorado High Performance Transportation Enterprise group is projected to be completed in 2019. The C-470 is a 26-mile highway along the southern and western part of the Denver area, which stretches between the I-25 and E-470 in the east to the intersection of U.S. 36 and I-70 in the west.
The federal Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act loan was approved by DOT’s Build America Bureau.
“By leveraging a loan from the bureau, more projects like the C-470 express lane project can become viable,” Marty Klepper, the bureau’s executive director, said June 14. “We have an open door policy for any transportation project sponsor to meet with our team to discuss bureau loan programs that could move projects forward.”
Established as a one-stop shop to assist with infrastructure financing, the bureau also offers technical assistance and encourages innovative practices in project planning, financing, construction and monitoring. According to DOT, the TIFIA loan program has closed $26.4 billion in financings to support nearly $100 billion in projects for rail, highway and transit.
