COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) — The four-laned Banning Lewis Parkway (BLP) now has a shorter and more direct route in and out of the growing, sprawling community of Banning Lewis Ranch (BLR) in the city’s northeastern corner.
At 10:30 a.m. Monday, city officials opened BLP’s connection to Woodmen Road, giving residents an option to using the parkway’s west end at Dublin Boulevard.
The parkway was closed several blocks south between Woodmen and Water Meadow Drive; late last week, crews worked on testing and synchronizing traffic signals at the new intersection.
Officials said that the intersection would be partially open during the weekend, with a full opening on Monday morning.
The timing of the new intersection is convenient for residents as construction gears up on an improvement project along Dublin, west of Marksheffel Road; and on the widening of Marksheffel between Dublin south to Barnes Road.
“As BLR has started and developed particularly in proximity to the Woodmen Road area, the only way to really get in and out of that area previously had been Dublin,” Gayle Sturdivant, the city’s deputy director of public works, explained. “Barnes will (eventually) go from BLP to Marksheffel, so there’ll be a third connection there within about a year.”
BLP currently ends to the south at Stetson Hills Boulevard; Stetson Hills doesn’t connect yet to the parkway at Marksheffel to the west, but it appears it likely will in the future.
Dylan and Laura Perry are preparing to move into a house in BLR, and are excited about the new intersection just around the corner from them.
From where we live, it’ll be just straight shots,” said Dylan. “It’s a great way to avoid all of the construction that’s happening around here.”
The Perrys were married nearly two years ago and have two kids…