6th Avenue Bridge Rolls Out

Lakewood, May 2, 2010 – Crews building the Regional Transportation District’s (RTD) FasTracks West Corridor Light Rail Line re-opened West 6th Avenue 30 hours ahead of schedule, after placing a light rail bridge over 6th Avenue this weekend. The work was completed earlier than expected, allowing crews to re-open the highway just after midnight on Saturday. The westbound lanes opened at 11:30 p.m. followed by the eastbound lanes one hour later at 12:30 a.m. The roll-out of the main span of a double-track light rail bridge across 6th Avenue just east of Simms/Union could have taken up to 30 hours, but favorable conditions decreased that time to just14 hours. Completing operations early and getting 6th Avenue open between Simms/Union and Kipling substantially decreased the impact this closure had on traveling motorists.
 
All lanes of 6th Avenue closed at 10:00 p.m. Friday night, April 30, and were originally scheduled to open at 5:30 a.m. Monday morning, May 3.  After postponing last weekend, crews successfully
transported the bridge without incident.
 
The joint decision by the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT), RTD  and its contractor to completely close the highway for one full weekend reduced what could have been months of lane closures.  By assembling the bridge on the side of the highway over the past several months and rolling the bridge into place over a weekend substantially minimized the impact to commuters traveling on 6th Avenue.

6th Avenue Bridge Roll out – early opening

The 12.1-mile West Corridor light rail project is the first of the FasTracks corridors to start
construction. The West Corridor line will operate between Denver Union Station in downtown
Denver and the Jefferson County Government Center in Golden; serving Denver, Lakewood, the
Denver Federal Center, Golden and Jefferson County. The corridor is scheduled to open to the
public in 2013.
 
The FasTracks investment initiative is RTD’s voter-approved transit program to expand rail and bus
service throughout the RTD service area. FasTracks will create six new rail corridors, extend three
existing corridors, build 18 miles of bus rapid transit service, add 21,000 new parking spaces,
redevelop Denver Union Station and redirect bus service to better connect the eight-county District.