$55 million parkway extension will connect I-25 to airport

By next Christmas, getting to the Colorado Springs Airport will be more like flying in Santa’s sleigh.

A $55.4 million reconfiguration and extension to Milton E. Proby Parkway will shave precious time off the southern airport route for motorists.

“It will provide direct access to I-25 that we haven’t enjoyed in the past,” said aviation director Mark Earle. “It’s a terrific project.”

A new two-mile, four-lane expressway will extend Milton Proby Parkway between Academy and Powers boulevards. Drivers will reach the expressway from the South Academy Boulevard exit off Interstate 25.

The design also includes the city’s first triple-level flyover, said City Engineer Robin Kidder. The interchange, just south of Drennan Road, will enable continuous movement in all directions for north- and southbound Academy traffic.

Construction will return Drennan to a residential street, as traffic is relocated to the new Proby Parkway between Academy Boulevard and Hancock Expressway.

The project is on target to be completed in October, Kidder said.

The need for a quick way to get from Interstate 25 to the municipal airport was identified in a city-directed East-West Mobility Study, completed in 2002.

Kidder said the goal was to devise the shortest possible connection without traffic lights or stop signs.

“Cities get judged by how well their airports connect to interstates, and we weren’t ranking real high because Drennan was a two-lane county road,” he said.

Work began in May, on the fifth anniversary of the death of the man for which the highway is named. The Rev. Milton E. Proby was a pastor at St. John’s Baptist Church in Colorado Springs for 48 years and was known for his work as a civil rights leader. The roadway was formerly part of Drennan.

A 2004 voter-approved 1 percent sales tax is paying for the project, administered under the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority.

This is the largest capital project using solely PPRTA funds to date, said spokesman Jason Wilkinson. 

For environmental consciousness, the work is incorporating recycled concrete and asphalt, Kidder said, along with fly ash, a by-product of coal-fired power plants.

Landscaping and sound walls will be consistent with what currently surrounds the airport, he added.

The project is one of five east-west corridor improvements now underway throughout the city. The others involve Woodmen Road, Austin Bluffs Parkway, Platte Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Bypass.