El Paso Blvd. water-line project adds new obstacle for east-west drivers
Dec. 5, 2017For the past year, motorists detouring around the Westside Avenue Action Plan (WAAP) project to and from Manitou Springs have been able to use El Paso Boulevard.
Starting in mid-December, that option is going away for a few months, due to a major Colorado Springs Utilities
A Colorado Springs Utilities graphic shows a
potential neighborhood-street detour for motorists to and from Manitou Springs
during the water-line replacement project on El Paso Boulevard continuing until
spring. Colorado/Manitou Avenue is not suggested because of the ongoing
Westside Avenue Action Plan project.
Courtesy of Colorado Springs Utilities
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The work will lay 30-inch-diameter pipe under El Paso between Beckers Lane and Columbia Road.
According to a press release, activities begin Dec. 11 with crews milling El Paso from Beckers Lane to Via Maria Theresia. It is not known what detour will be suggested when the pipe work focuses on El Paso between Via Maria Theresia and Columbia.
The pipe-project website at csu.org says that the job will continue through spring 2018. “Flaggers will be on-site, allowing an alternating single lane of traffic,” the release states.
Because similar conditions exist for WAAP- a two-year rebuild of Colorado/Manitou Avenue west of 31st Street - the nearest adjacent alternative between Columbia and Beckers is neighborhood streets. Going west (see the map on this page), drivers can take Via Maria Theresia north of El Paso, with a jog at Beckers Lane; then onto Via San Miguel and left on Via Vallecito and back to El Paso a block west of Beckers.
The Beckers-to-Columbia section is the second of two in the pipe project. Utilities began work in October on the segment in Manitou Springs between Garden of the Gods Place and Manitou Avenue.
The pipe being replaced is part of a lengthy raw-water connection that carries water from Pikes Peak reservoirs to the Mesa Water Treatment Plant at Mesa Road and Fillmore Street.
At a meeting in September, Utilities project manager Steve Rodriguez of Springs Utilities apologized for the project coinciding with WAAP. He explained that the pipe replacements only became a priority in mid-2017, after those segments, dating back to 1934, showed increasing signs of failure.
The Mesa treatment plant itself is scheduled for an upgrade in 2018. For more information, call 645-4950 or go to https://www.csu.org/Pages/mspringspipe.aspx.
Westside Pioneer article
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