As the calendar approaches the three-year anniversary of the worst flash flood event in Longmont’s history, the city continues to repair and improve bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure that was either damaged or destroyed. It’s a long process, to be sure. Some of the final projects are scheduled to be completed in late 2017, but there is significant progress to report.

New bicycle and pedestrian bridge on St. Vrain Greenway

A new bridge is completed on the St. Vrain Greenway Trail between Roger’s Grove and Sunset Street. Since the floods, bicyclists and pedestrians were detoured off of the St. Vrain Greenway Trail and onto Boston Avenue. The completion of the bridge means the detour is a thing of the past, making navigating through central Longmont easier.

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New Sunset Street bridge

The bridge over Sunset Street that was destroyed in the September 2013 floods has been rebuilt. As of May 19, 2016, bike lanes are open in both directions across the Sunset Street bridge and the connector ramps from the bridge to the St. Vrain Greenway trail are open. All of the flood repairs and improvements are important, but the Sunset Street bridge is especially so because it provides cyclists with better, more logical route options when riding to downtown from southwest Longmont and vice versa.

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Underpass at Main Street bridge closed

The last big project to be completed is the new Main Street bridge and underpass (the underpass is part of the St. Vrain Greenway). The bridge survived the floods, but the trail underpass did not. The existing bridge is being replaced one side at a time, with the first side almost complete. The idea of this project is to improve drainage, greenway and transportation issues by constructing a new bridge over the St. Vrain that can handle 100 year storm flows, which the previous structure did not. Though construction began a while ago, it is not expected to be complete until late 2017.

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It has been great to see the steady progress on all of the repairs and improvements that the city has undertaken since the floods occurred in September 2013, and I’m excited to finally see them finished next year.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]