More than seven years after voters approved spending plans for a major rebuild of West 72nd Avenue, the city of Arvada is stepping back from a key part of the plan.
The city will no longer build an underpass for 72nd Avenue where it crosses a railway just west of Kipling Street. The underpass would have replaced the current at-grade crossing, which city planners called a traffic bottleneck and a safety risk.
It was part of a larger plan to widen the road, but costs for the underpass have doubled to nearly $140 million since voters initially approved the project in 2018.
The change sends the city back to the drawing board for its plans to widen the two-lane stretch of the avenue. It could now take five to 10 more years to complete the project…