UFR TPR June 5th, 2025 Meeting Minutes

Chair Ross called the meeting to order at 1:00 PM. Introductions were made around the room, and a quorum was determined to be present. Entities present: Weld County, Larimer County, Morgan County, CDOT, City of Brush/Town of Hillrose, Estes Park, Fort Morgan, Fort Lupton, Keenesburg, Kersey, Platteville, and Wellington.

Approval of UFRTPR March 6, 2025, Meeting Minutes – Chair Ross

Motion: Approve the March 6, 2025, Meeting Minutes, Moved by: Vice Chair Stephens, seconded by: Troy Renken. Motion passed unanimously.

Transportation Commissioner Announcements (Cecil Gutierrez, CDOT)

Cecil was not available for this meeting.

Multimodal Transportation and Mitigation Options Fund (MMOF) Program Update (Michael Snow, CDOT)

The legislature has retracted $71,400,000 from the existing Local MMOF fund balance including allocations that have been made to the Upper Front Range (UFR) and awarded to projects. The challenge now for the Transportation Planning Region (TPR) is to take those fully programmed allocations and reduce them to fall back into these newly reduced allocations.  One of the options is to delay current awards out to later years, or to make some cancellations of some projects all together. It is ultimately up to the UFRTPR to make this decision, but CDOT staff is on hand to provide guidance and tools as this is a challenging decision. Updated allocations were presented to the group.

Evan Pinkham stated that funds have been allocated from Fiscal Year (FY) 2024-2028 and asked if it would be a good idea to include FY 2029 to help cover some of these funds, or if it would be a good idea to wait and see what happens with the budget next year.

Michael responded that it is expected for there to be a budget deficit next year as well. However, he also wants the group to be cognizant of the fact that some of the funding was lost because of the slow pace of the MMOF projects being implemented and the funds being spent. Therefore, if there hadn’t been such a big outstanding balance, legislature would not have had much to look at. If we avoid awarding the funds ahead of time, we also slow the pace of getting it spent and the awardees will have less time to get their projects ready. This may conclude that the only way to go is to charge ahead and award our funds early, which means projects will be ready to spend the funds and the reserves will be spent down faster, and we will be safer from future drawback. The other side of that coin is that we have already made awards to projects and these local agencies may already have their projects underway, so if we do not use our FY 29 funds, we will have to cancel around $1,000,000 in awards. Ultimately, he says the choice is up to us (the TPR). 

Vice Chair Stephens asked if we would make the decision today on whether or not to allocate FY 29 funds, or should there be a separate meeting?

Michael stated that they are requesting that TPR’s finalize their award adjustment decisions by October 2025, but as some projects may be ready to spend these funds sooner, a decision may need to be made sooner.

Chair Ross suggested a special meeting in August to review the projects and how far along they are in the execution process and the criticality on the MMOF dollars towards the project.

Heather Paddock added that their local agency resident engineer, Bryce Reeves can provide a CDOT perspective of the projects during the meeting to be referred to.

Chair Ross is hoping that the meeting in August would allow a final decision to be made during the September UFRTPR meeting.   

State Highway 14 Safety Study Update (Bryce Reeves, CDOT)

A study was completed along State Highway (SH) 14 between Larimer County Road 5 and Weld County Road (WCR) 43 on April 9^th, 2025, by consultant: Fehr & Peers. Corridor wide recommendations were made in order to make this road safer. Bryce wanted to make the group aware that if there is a project listed in this study that a local agency is interested in moving forward with, that they can and they do not need to wait for CDOT to act on that recommendation Interested agencies should contact Bryce or Katrina Kloberdanz to express interest in partnering on a project. This would also make it easier for them to plan their safety dollars. 

Katrina added that some of the next steps following completion of this study would be to start some of the easier fixes including the striping changes in passing zones that have sight distance issues by striping them as no passing zones to avoid head on collisions. They also would like to further evaluate some of the recommendations for passing lanes. A few intersections were concluded as less safe than others such as: WCR 29, WCR 31, and WCR 33. Katrina would like to get those projects scoped and 10% designed so they can get a rough estimate of cost as well as some of the other more dangerous sections.

Chair Ross suggested that Bryce highlight the intersections that have bigger issues than others in order to lead into discussion as a group and allow for the next steps to progress for these projects.

The first intersection specified was SH 14 and WCR 29. This intersection has a pattern of crashes resulting in injury and the recommendation is to install an Intersection Conflict Warning System to alert drivers of approaching west bound vehicles.   The next intersection is SH 14 and WCR 31. This intersection also has a pattern of crashes resulting in injury and the recommendation is to install auxiliary left-turn lanes on SH 14, clear vegetation to improve south bound sight distance, and conduct a signal warrant analysis. The last intersection highlighted was SH 14 and WCR 33 where it was suggested to remove vegetation, re-stripe to improve left turn offset on SH 14, and potentially install a north bound left-turn auxiliary lane.

Chair Ross also wanted to include SH 14 and WCR 23 in the discussion where it was recommended through the study to remove the northbound bypass lane on the south leg to prevent accidents, review truck volumes for potential auxiliary lanes on SH 14, and to align the north and south legs of the intersection.  

Chair Ross thanked CDOT’s team for the work done on the study.

UFR Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) Draft (Marissa Gaughan, CDOT)

Marissa introduced Spencer York. Spencer is new on the Multi Modal Planning branch team, and we will be seeing more of him going forward. Marissa announced that today marks over a year of hard work on our UFR Regional Transportation Plan (RTP), she is thankful for all of the hard work so far and is happy to present to the group a draft of our plan today. Their team has been conducting public outreach including holding public meetings at local townhalls, and they also provided a survey in order to receive additional feedback from the public.

Spencer presented the group with a draft of the UFR 2050 RTP.  Following this meeting, they will be receiving all comments from the TPR’s and will be discussing that feedback at the next UFR TPR meeting on September 4, 2025.  

Emily Barden also presented to the group the Upper Front Range Coordinated Public Transit and Human Services Transportation Plan draft.  This Plan is a Federal Transit Administration (FTA) requirement in order for transit agencies and the UFR to receive federal transit funding and is to be published as an appendix to the UFR 2050 RTP. The goals of this plan are to preserve and expand the existing transit systems and infrastructure, provide regional connections, and improve regional coordination.  

Spencer asked to the group to review the 2050 RTP and to provide feedback to their team either through a link provided in the presentation, or email Spencer directly at spencer.york@state.co.us for Transit Plan comments and please CC Emily Barden at Emily.barden@state.co.us.

Draft 10-Year Plan Project List for UFR (Heather Paddock & Josie Thomas, CDOT)

Heather Paddock presented to the group an update on the 10–Year Plan. This plan was developed in 2019 when CDOT embarked on a statewide effort to hear directly from Coloradoans on what they need from their transportation system. From this feedback, CDOT developed a list of projects for fiscal years 2019-2027 which we call the 10-Year Strategic Project Pipeline (10YP). CDOT is continuing to receive feedback in many ways including: Telephone Townhalls, updating the Long-Range Plans, and hosting Project Priority Programming Process (4P) meetings. They use all of this feedback in consideration when creating the list of projects to prioritize with their strategic funds. Heather highlighted that they have made significant progress to date and that 100% of the projects from the first four years (2019-2022) in the 10YP are either completed or currently under construction. Right now, they are currently transitioning to create the next 10 years (2027-2036) of projects to prioritize, while really focusing on years 2027-2030.

Heather explained that their fiscal constraint is less than prior years, and that they have had to face some challenging decisions. She also stated that CDOT delivers more than just what is in the 10YP, and just because a project isn’t on the list does not mean that it is not going to get done. The 10YP is made up from strategic funds, but there are also funds available that are not allocated in the 10YP that can be used to make projects whole or be standalone projects. The draft 10YP project list with a fiscal restraint must be submitted to CDOT Head Quarters by July 11, 2025, and an adoption of the next 10YP will be in December 2025.

The draft list of projects for the 10YP was provided to the group and it was reviewed.

Community Roundtable

Brush/Hillrose (Dale Colerick) - Brush is currently doing a lot of road repair and getting ready for roadway treatments later on in August/September. Nothing for Hillrose.

Morgan County (Tim Malone) - Morgan County had an engineer from CDOT come out to their Board of County Commissioners meeting to give an update on the changes on I-76 through Morgan County. A concern was brought to CDOT on the intersection of Highway 34 and Morgan County Road 24 where they have had some sight complications due to a group of trees resulting in fatalities over the past couple years. CDOT is going to give them some assistance with this. 

Wellington (Cody Bird) - Wellington is advancing work on their Right-of-Way (ROW) acquisition for their Revitalizing Main Streets (RMS) project for SH 1 through downtown. Plans for this project are at 90% and preparing to go to bid pending ROW. Cody appreciates the consideration for the I-25 project and the pedestrian crossing that was discussed as this plan is very important to their safety goals.

Fort Lupton (Chris Cross) - Fort Lupton has a US Highway 85 Coalition meeting next week and will be working with CDOT staff on a safety issue at WCR 8 and US Highway 85 where they will be working on an immediate remediation solution so they can have time to come up with a proper permanent solution to make things safer.

Heather Paddock added that they have money in the current transportation plan for this area and they are doing an interim permit and then a permanent permit, but they have also added another $5,000,000.00 in the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG) list because they do believe there is a lot of work to be done here.

Larimer County (Vice-Chair Kristin Stephens) - Larimer County’s Owl Canyon Road Project on LCR 70 from LCR 11 to LCR 13 final offer review plans are complete, ROW has been approved, and the ROW application is in process. They are anticipating the contract will begin for this project in 2026. The Owl Canyon Road project between LCR 9 and LCR 11 is on hold until they can acquire additional funding. They have three guardrails in the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) that are going to construction this fall, and a couple other guardrails that are in design. The Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) is complete for the Bingham Hill Widening project. Bingham Hill is a road in Larimer County that connects people to a lot of recreational areas and has a lot of bike traffic, and they are hoping for construction to begin on that in 2026.The Pingree Park Bridge project’s federal grant was on hold in the Bridge Improvement Program (BIP), but they recently heard they can move forward with the planning grant. Larimer County has adopted their Comprehensive Safety Plan, and they have received funds from the Safe Streets for All (SS4A) Grant Program. Larimer County is working on the Transportation Plan update. Public comment for the Transportation Plan is open until June 8^th. Some good news is they received a grant from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and another grant for a project in the North Front Range Metropolitan Planning Organization (NFRMPO) and they are happy to have the federal funds flowing.

Estes Park (David Greear) - Estes Park is going to be adopting a Multi Modal Transportation Plan in July that is almost to the finish line. For the Estes Park Loop project, they are already seeing some stress testing on it this year from Memorial Day weekend, and it is doing great, they will be doing some before and after studies on this road including travel time delays, etc., but so far so good. The Fall River Trail project is 100% designed and they will begin the final phase this fall so it is almost complete.

CDOT (Katrina Kloberdanz) - Katrina wanted to add to Morgan County’s comment on Highway 34 and MCR 24, she talked to maintenance today and they are going to go out and trim the trees but there are still some concerns about sight distance because of the way the road is laid out and they are going to see what they can do to make some improvements.

Gina Fox also added that CDOT is going to begin construction on Highway 287 and Owl Canyon to make some safety improvements that will start July 7 and will take one to two weeks to finish. The final steps to rehab one of the bridges on State Highway 14 up Cameron Pass will start Monday and should be complete by the fourth of July weekend.

Rich Christy announced he will not be at the Highway 85 Coalition next week, but he is happy to answer any questions or provide further information that the group may have on the WCR 8 and US Highway 85 discussion.

Weld County (Commisioner Kevin Ross) - Up north they are finishing their final phase of Weld County Road 71 out to Grover. This has been a three-year project, and the community will be happy to have the detour over, but this project greatly improved the safety and drivability on this road. Weld County is excited for the funding opportunities for the roundabout in Keenesburg by the Highschool, and Ross would like to say thank you for keeping that one moving and for the study completed on Highway 14. There are a lot of projects going on. On SH 66 just outside of Platteville, there are two intersections they are improving on and should make traffic a lot smoother and safer.

Evan Pinkham included that they received funding for a Safety Action Plan from the SS4A, and they are going out for public comment on this starting with the Town of Severance Summer Kick-Off Concert, and they will be going to nine other public events including the Independence Day Celebration in Fort Lupton on July 4th. 

Public or Additional Comments

Chair Ross wanted the group to be aware that the next Upper Front Range meeting in September location has changed to the East Point Building in Fort Morgan

Inactive Projects Report (Handout – Evan Pinkham Weld County)

Evan explained that the Town of Keenesburg will be transferring their funds from the State Highway 52 & Weld County Road 59 Sign Installation Project to the State Highway 52 and CR 59 Roundabout Project. Since the funds were not originally for that location, they are working with CDOT to transfer those funds. All projects listed are working with CDOT to get into compliance.

Adjourn

Meeting adjourned at 3:18 PM

Respectfully submitted,

Samantha Brown

Secretary