CENTENNIAL—
A proposal to radically change the I-25, Arapahoe Road interchange has area residents saying "Not in my back yard."Typically Centennial gets four or five people to show up for their City Council meetings.
But for this one it's an overflow crowd.
They're here from different neighborhoods in the area near the I-25 Arapahoe Road interchange, which Centennial, Arapahoe County and Greenwood Village are studying for a major overhaul.
"There are a lot of us that feel like there have been things discussed here at the City of Centennial that would have a very direct impact on our neighborhood and we weren't aware of it," said Erin Jones who lives in the Walnut Hills neighborhood which would be impacted by the redesign.
"I got a feeling you know property values might go down they start bringing traffic through the neighborhood and I kind of wonder what the ultimate plan for this area and community is," said Ken Daniels who also lives in the area.
The first step is for an Environmental Assessment, a streamlined Environmental Impact Statement, to study building an underpass which would take traffic far south of the current interchange with destruction of at least two buildings.
The 80 to 120 million dollar project would route traffic from the always overloaded Arapahoe Road corridor, more directly toward neighborhoods currently buffered from the congestion.
But City Council is split on what some call last minute changes to the proposal.
"If we have presented funding partners and members of Congress with one version we should not then go forward with something different without bringing the public back in and making sure that they have some leverage and a voice in the process," said Centennial Councilwoman Rebecca McClellan.
But Centennial spokeswoman Sherry Patten said, "It's kind of the cart before the horse, when we have an opportunity to do the environmental assessment on this particular project they will all be invited to have their say so."
In any case, construction on the project is still years away.
But because they're applying for federal funding for the project, they need to move forward with the environmental study.
Ironically the just completed TREX project did nothing to improve the interchange except for cosmetic changes and the redesign is years overdue according to all three municipalities involved in the partnership.
