Nichols Ave. & Flat River Pkwy. — Approximate Example Route Toward Mineral
Crews working on Littleton’s $21.4 million Santa Fe Drive and Mineral Avenue overhaul have reached the halfway mark, and the most jarring change for drivers is still ahead: every left-turn arrow at the intersection is going away for good. The project is reshaping the busiest and most dangerous crossing in the city, where roughly 90,000 vehicles pass through each day.
According to Denver7, Santa Fe Drive alone carries about 60,000 cars daily while Mineral Avenue handles roughly 30,000, and the City of Littleton has been working with the Colorado Department of Transportation to redesign how that traffic moves through the junction. Between 2021 and 2025, the intersection recorded 183 crashes, including 28 serious injuries and one death, making it the site of more collisions than any other intersection in Littleton, per the station’s reporting. Left-turn movements were tied to the highest number of those incidents, according to Denver7’s reporting, which cited city traffic official Matuszewski.
Why Left Turns Are Disappearing
Once construction wraps, drivers will no longer be able to turn left directly at Santa Fe and Mineral. Instead, the station reports that motorists will be rerouted through a quadrant road, a roundabout, and connecting side streets to complete those movements. Southbound Santa Fe drivers headed for Mineral, for instance, will turn left on Nichols Avenue, loop around a roundabout, head north on Flat River Parkway, then turn left onto Mineral Avenue, per the same account…