Northbound on I-25
Starting at mile marker 138, we travel north through the city of Colorado Springs. The first couple of miles of the COSMIX construction zone will not see much changes, if any at all. From MM 138 to MM 141 and then from MM 142 to 145, the interstate is already three to four lanes in width. The problems will be the Bijou Stret Interchange and the Rockrimmon Road, N. Nevada Avenue, and Coroprate Centre Drive interchanges, which are scheduled to be combined into one.
Video Drive-Through
0:05 Cimarron Street
0:23 Midland Trail Bridge (see the Colorado Avenue page for info)
0:31 Colorado Avenue
0:44 Bijou Street
1:16 Onto previously reconstructed segment.
1:33 Uintah Street
2:16 Fontanero Street
2:43 Typical slowdown for the Fillmore bottleneck.
3:25 Stop and Go goodness.
3:57 VMS warning about an accident on Fillmore.
4:27 Start of COSMIX Zone 1.
0:01 Onto new asphalt.
0:02 Fillmore Street
0:05 Shift right into new lane alignment.
0:14 Traffic is still thick but it's opening up.
1:02 Cable rail installation, part 1.
1:51 Cable rail installation, part 2.
1:57 Ellston Street
2:50 Garden of the Gods Road
2:51 Shift to the right shoulder.
2:54 Bump!
3:10 Start of COSMIX Zone 2.
3:15 Former Garden of the Gods merge point.
3:28 Temporary Gerden of the Gods merge point.
4:11 Rockrimmon Curve
4:32 Bump!
4:33 Rockrimmon Boulevard
4:40 Southern crossover; entering major bridge construction area.
4:42 Detour onto new C/D bridge.
4:59 Curving back onto old pavement.
5:01 North Nevada Avenue
5:35 Northern crossover.
6:01 Busted!! Nothing like a doubled fine to brighten your day.
6:15 Recent (8/21/06) pour of new cement is seen.
6:30 Woodmen Road
7:28 Entering the narrow area being widened.
7:37 Fresh grading awaiting paving.
7:50 Rough, bumpy happiness.
8:15 Academy Boulevard and the end of the COSMIX project.
Still Pictures
Clicking on thumbnails will show you the full-sized picture in a pop-up window. Be sure to check out each exit's page as well! There's more in-depth pictures of each exit's transformations on them!
Exit 141 - US 24 West/Cimarron Street
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Original shot
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The Cimmaron St merge lane is hella short and the onramp straight uphill doesn't help.
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Colorado Avenue Bridge
The Colorado Avenue bridge is located between the Cimmaron and Bijou exits, which is why I placed these pictures between these exits as well... :p~~
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Exit 142 - Bijou Street
This is where things get interesting. This entire interchange and bridge structures are slated to be replaced late in the project (2007). Additional pics of the structures can be found on the Bijou Street page. Before the 2003 straightening and widening north of this interchange, I-25 had some tight curves to make it under Bijou. Just to the east of this interchange lies Monument Creek and there was a neighborhood (now office buildings) to the west, so the original engineers had to shoehorn the interstate through here. Interesting factoid: Monument Creek is actually higher than the level of the interstate when it goes under the bridge. In heavy rainstorms there can be some flooding, but nothing like what used to plague I-25 under Logan Street in Denver. That's been solved now too, thanks to the TREX project.
Original shot
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The last button-copy sign on the interstate in Colorado Springs. It's definitely seen better days.
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Exit 143 - Uintah Street
This section was remade back in 2002-2003. It is currently striped as three lanes from Bijou to Fillmore, but CDOT considers lane 3 the auxillary lane through the stretch. The right shoulder is wide enough to accomodate a fourth lane as an auxillary lane between exits, and will be restriped that way in 2007. Then lane 3 is a real, all grown up lane!
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Exit 144 - Fontanero Street
This exit is horribly underused, and has been that way since the interstate was built. To the east, Fontanero ends at a city maintenance yard just after the railroad tracks that parallel the interstate. To the west lies a 4 block wide neighborhood. That's all for this exit.
Original shot
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This shot shows what I-25 will look like at completion. 3 lanes plus the auxillary lane between exits.
Exit 145 - SH38/Fillmore Street
At this point, we lose lane three. From here to the end of the project, I-25 is only 2 lanes wide plus a auxillary lane here and there. Obviously this will be remedied by the end of the project.
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Original shot
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Coming up to the Fillmore bridge. Note the traffic sensor to the right of the roadway.
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Original shot
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The skidmarks say everything about the small acceleration lane here. It's about 500 feet long.
Ellston Street Bridge
This is another bridge that will have to be replaced or rehabbed to accomodate three lanes.
Original shot
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This is a short narrow bridge. Note the VMS behind the truck. These are throughout the I-25 corridor in COS.
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Exit 146 - Garden of the Gods Road
Easy to widen through here. The entire interchange was prepped for an eventual widening back in the 1980's.
Original shot
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Widened earlier and ready for the additional lane. I just hope they're planning on panting. :)
02/07/06
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NB lanes have nothing in the median anymore. This is also a shot of where the SB lanes are now.
Exit 147 - Rockrimmon Boulevard
The next 2 miles will be changing a lot with the COSMIX project. This interchange and the next will be comnbined into one. See more pics on the Rockrimmon page.
Original shot
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Good wide shot of the Rockrimmon interchange. NB exits to Mark Dabling Rd., which leads to Rockrimmon.
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Exit 148A - Bus 25 South/US 85 (unsigned)/N. Nevada Avenue
At this point, Business 25 and (unsigned) US 85 merges back into I-25. Again, this exit will be changing a lot quickly as this and Rockrimmon are combined into one interchange. When traveling southbound, Nevada "y"s from the interstate. Nevada only goes south from this exit.
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Original shot
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The northbound lanes gain an auxillary lane from this merge to Woodmen, the next exit.
Exit 148B - Corporate Centre Drive
Exit 148B is not accessable from the northbound lanes. Travelers wanting to access this road must go up to Woodmen and go west to the intersection of Woodmen Road and Corporate Drive, which turns into Corporate Crentre Drive. Still check out the page, though, since there's a lot of pics of the new bridge structures.
Exit 149 - Woodmen Road
The Woodmen Road interchange was rebuilt over 4 years and finished up late in 2004. Midway through the construction, the original contractor of the project went bankrupt. A new contractor was brought in to complete it and fix some issues the original contractor missed. Because of this, this interchange is full of interesting things for the roadgeek: mislabeled signs, stopgap paving, interesting bridge railings, and tricks with power lines that are parallel to the roadway.
Original shot
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Just after the Nevada merge. The Woodmen exit is really about ½ mile away, which is what is under the greenout.
Original shot
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The lanes shift to the right before the interchange, presumably for future widening to four lanes each way.
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Original shot
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Look to the left: the bridge railing is so high here that the guardrail had to be "stretched" to meet up with it.
Exit 150 - TO SH 83/academy Boulevard
This is the northernmost exit of the COSMIX project. The third lane added to the highway will exit at Academy and the interstate will return to 2 lanes until north of Castle Rock, which is 40 miles to the north.
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- Where to next?
- Retrace your steps southbound
- COSMIX Home
Disclaimer: This website is not affiliated with the COSMIX Project or the Colorado Department of Transportation. All pictures contained on this site are solely the property of Ryan Wanner unless otherwise specified. Copying/distributing these pictures without my authorization is going to put me in a pretty bad mood, and you don't want to see that, trust me. Linking to this site is more than welcome, but let me know so that I can return the favor. That is all, have a good day, k?--Ryan
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