On Wednesday night, the city of Glenwood Springs held an informational meeting with residents and owners in the Cardiff Glen neighborhood about the progress, design elements and timeline of the South Bridge project, which would construct a bridge across the Roaring Fork River between Colorado Highway 82 and neighborhoods east of Airport Road. 

Held at Sopris Elementary School, the meeting was led by City Engineer Ryan Gordon and Transportation Engineer Lee Barger, who have been heavily involved in planning and executing parts of the project. 

Over 40 residents attended the meeting and were invited to ask questions and express their concerns about the project. 

Design updates 

Several fundamental pieces of the project have been removed or changed since initial discussions of the project, such as the change in material of the bridge from a concrete segmented bridge to a steel girder bridge, and the removal of a tunnel that would have run under the Glenwood Springs Municipal Airport runway. 

“That is no longer there. If we did have this tunnel, we’d be the first community in Colorado to have a tunnel under a runway,” Gordon said. “We didn’t want to be the Guinea pigs.”  

The initial design also included sidewalks on both sides of the road that ran from the Four Mile roundabout to Airport Road and across the bridge, though the sidewalk on the south and west side has since been replaced with a single 10-foot shared path on the north side (the same width as the current Rio Grande Trail) that will connect to the trail system, Gordon explained. 

The road leading from the bridge might also include pedestrian crosswalks on raised platforms, encouraging cars to slow down as they drive over them. 

Gordon said the federally required sound study for the city’s 2017 project design recommended a sound wall in front of the Cardiff Glen community to mitigate traffic noise. Gordon explained the city is mandated to conduct another sound study based on the design changes and updated traffic model, which could eliminate the requirement for a sound wall.

Measuring traffic impacts

The 2017 sound study indicated that there were roughly 2,700 cars going through Four Mile per day, with 8,300 going through the south Midland corridor. The most recent 2023-2024 traffic numbers say 2,200 cars travel through Four Mile per day (500 less than in 2017), with 8,100 going through the south Midland corridor (200 less than in 2017). 

“In seven years, we’ve seen basically a stagnation in that volume on Midland” Barger said. He added that Sunlight Bridge had gone down by roughly 1,000 vehicles. 

Future projections in the 2017 sound study estimated that 19,500 vehicles would be traveling through Four Mile daily in 2043, roughly 20 years into the future. 

“We feel that a lot of the projections we’re seeing now from when they made the projections in 2008 are 10, 20, 30% less than what we actually see today,” Gordon said. Barger suggested the decrease could have something to do with more people working from home now than in 2017. 

Gordon said he anticipates roughly 30-40% of Glenwood residents coming down Four Mile to go south toward Aspen, who would usually take 27^th Street to get into Highway 82, would likely take the South Bridge route. This would help alleviate some of the traffic congestion on Highway 82 between that stretch of road. 

“Another thing we’re hoping is going to happen is that if we’re taking 4,000 vehicles off of Highway 82, there’s that fewer vehicles going through Glenwood, which hopefully results in less congestion,” Ryan said. On the other end, while Airport Road currently sees 420 cars per day, the diversion would raise it to 4,000 per day after South Bridge is built. 

“It actually gets us a lot of capacity that we don’t currently have now because it’s so busy,” Barger said about H-82. “We carry 12,000 a day on the Sunlight Bridge now, and that would be reduced to more like, if it were built today, 8,000.” 

Gordon said the city’s current traffic projections, which they submitted for the sound study, are rather conservative and account for roughly 300 homes that could be built near South Bridge in the future. 

Were an emergency evacuation to occur, the bridge’s two lanes would become one-way lanes and funnel people away from Highway 82, giving them another way to get across the river. 

Residents weigh in on traffic and sound wall concerns

Several Cardiff Glen residents expressed concern over the possibility that commuters could use the bridge as a bypass, exponentially increasing the level of traffic passing through their neighborhood every day. Gordon emphasized that the city had several measures in mind to make the trip “as miserable as possible” for commuters looking to avoid Highway 82.  

“We are not designing this to be a bypass by any stretch of the imagination,” Gordon said. “… We can’t dictate where people drive, what we can do is try to control how they drive and how they come through our community. Our goal is to keep Highway 82 traffic on Highway 82 … I don’t think they’re going to find that (South Bridge) is going to be any faster.” 

Building the road around the airport runway as opposed to going underneath means there will be a curve requiring motorists to slow down, Gordon said. Speed bumps and a traffic circle on Morgan Street will also be utilized as natural barriers for speeding. The traffic circle would be tighter than a roundabout and not open to larger commercial vehicles.

“The other thing we have been looking at and talking with our police department (about) is, can we put speed cameras in that don’t just tell you how fast you’re going, they actually issue a ticket?” Gordon said. The cameras would run through the entire south Midland corridor.

Attendees also took turns making arguments for and against a sound wall, citing concerns surrounding noise, privacy, security and overall quality of life.

“I don’t think there’s a person here that’s against this project … but there’s 154 of our houses. This is going through our neighborhood. We have children, and we have a church, and we have schools. All I think the community is really asking is that you really do listen to us because we are scared,” Cardiff Glen resident Meryl Glickman said during the meeting. “I mean, I don’t know that people really want a giant brick (sound) wall … but I think what we want is we need to maintain our privacy, our security, from the roads. We need to have some sound mitigation.” 

“For the first time in my life, I am actually losing sleep over this, to be honest,” Glickman added. “The 154 homes are paying the biggest price for this evacuation.” 

If the sound study determines that a sound wall is recommended, the questions would then go to a vote in the next 3-6 months to the 12 Cardiff Glen homes located along Airport Road in front of where the wall would be located. The wall would be 15 feet high, made out of concrete, and sit roughly 15-20 feet in front of the homes. 

“Every single tree, all those pines, would be cut down,” Gordon said. “Kids that play in that field right now in that neighborhood would have 15 feet of space. That’s what the current situation is.” 

Gordon said that if the residents vote against a sound wall, there are still opportunities to implement alternative infrastructure, such as fences, landscaping or a small sound wall, that would preserve more of the open space in front of homes while providing an added layer of privacy.  

Other residents argued against those wanting a sound wall, saying that if the city’s measures against speeding are successful, slower cars won’t produce as much noise, and therefore the cost of the wall wouldn’t be worth it.

Cost and timeline updates

In a March city council meeting, Gordon stated that the estimated cost of South Bridge had reached roughly $105 million based on inflation and construction costs in 2026. Approximately $30 million of that total came from the construction work on the Highway 82 corridor. 

With the prior-mentioned changes to the materials and design of the project, the estimated cost now sits closer to $85 million, according to Gordon. Around $10-12 million of the cost shaved off the project comes from changes to the bridge design, with an additional $4-8 million in savings from the removal of the tunnel. 

The $49.68 million Rural Surface Transportation grant awarded to the project by the Biden-Harris Administration in December 2023 requires a $12.4 million local match from the city, though Gordon said they have the option to contribute as much as $20 million if the city deems it necessary. 

Gordon said the city currently sits at $69 million in funding for South Bridge, consisting of a mix of federal funding, grants, and a $4 million contribution from RFTA. The city has since identified CDOT and Garfield County as potential funding partners.

Project consultant Jacobs Engineering is on track to finalize the new bridge design by October 2025, with construction beginning in 2026. 

“Every month, this project goes up a couple hundred thousand dollars,” Gordon said. “The sooner we can get things figured out and worked out, the better.” 

In order to keep the nearly $50 million federal grant, the project must be out to bid by September 2026. Construction would last roughly 2.5 years. Gordon said the city would have a more finalized cost estimate by the end of the year. 

“One of the things that we’ve heard is, ‘We gave you this $50 million bucks. If you give it back, don’t come ask for any more,'” Gordon said. “There’s a lot of motivation to try to get this as a functional project.”