The Colorado Department of Transportation is developing designs to widen a portion of U.S. 24 in Falcon, looking to improve safety and reduce congestion in this growing area of eastern El Paso County.

Residents can learn more about proposed roadway improvements to the approximately 2.3-mile stretch of the highway between Garrett and Woodmen roads at an open house Wednesday, anytime between 5-6:30 p.m. The event will be held at the Falcon Elementary School of Technology at 12050 Falcon Highway.

“We are excited to be moving forward with this U.S. 24 expansion, knowing this was a crucial next step identified by our team and stakeholders in area improvements,” Andy Stecklein, Colorado Department of Transportation Region 2 project manager, said in a news release this week.

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Part of a longtime U.S. 24 East Access Control Plan that anticipates improvements to U.S. 24 east and connecting roads, proposed upgrades to this section of the highway include adding one new lane in each direction, turning it from a two-lane roadway into a four-lane roadway; widening the median; and updating existing at-grade intersections to accommodate the widened highway.

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Since the early 2000s, El Paso County, the city of Colorado Springs and the state transportation department have partnered to operate, maintain, plan for and build improvements to U.S. 24 East.

The proposed highway work between Garrett and Woodmen roads came out of a Planning and Environmental Linkages Study the Colorado Department of Transportation completed in 2018. It examined conditions and anticipated problem areas along the U.S. 24 corridor between Powers Boulevard (Colorado 21) and Ramah, the news release states.

The study identified several transportation improvements along the corridor and found the area between Garrett Road and Woodman Trail is a high priority for additional lanes, the project website states.

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Officials are also exploring the possibility of adding backage and frontage roads to provide residents living in the area safer access to U.S. 24. A proposed backage road would route residents to U.S. 24 through a new connection at Falcon Highway. A frontage road would create a second, private connection to U.S. 24 via Garrett Road.

“Left-hand turns (onto U.S. 24) would be very dangerous, so we would channel them to an area that has a signal and would make it safer,” Colorado Department of Transportation spokeswoman Amber Shipley said. “… From CDOT’s perspective, we know this has been needed for some time because of the congestion in the area. A lot of people are sitting at multiple cycles of a traffic signal because there are so many more residents living and commuting here.”

A project fact sheet states the highly-traveled U.S. 24 carries 15,250 vehicles daily, including almost 700 freight vehicles. It is the main route between Colorado Springs and Kansas and the upper Midwest.

The project is estimated to cost $50 million and will be partially funded by the state transportation department’s regional planning fund, Shipley said. The agency is requesting other funding for the project, she said.