State Highway 94 Access Management Plan
FINAL DRAFT AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW (Click here)
El Paso County, the City of Colorado Springs and Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) are collaborating to create an access management plan for Colorado State Highway 94. The plan would identify access points and/or criteria for identifying appropriate access points. The process involves working with the public, the Board of County Commissioners, Pikes Peak Area Council of Governments (PPACG), Shriever Air Force Base, landowners, and developers. The segment involved is from the eastern border of Colorado Springs city limits (6200’ westerly of Corral Valley Road) to Ellicott Highway.
What is access management?
The Federal Highway Administration’s official definition of access management is “the process that provides access to land development while simultaneously preserving the flow of traffic on the surrounding system in terms of safety, capacity, and speed.” In practical terms, access management includes techniques designed to manage the number of driveways or access points that a vehicle may encounter without hampering reasonable access to a property, removing slower, turning vehicles from the arterial as efficiently as possible, increase the capacity of these roads, manage congestion, and reduce crashes.
Functional classification means a classification system that defines a public roadway according to its purposes in the local or statewide highway plans. Access category means one of eight categories described in the State Access Code, and determines the degree to which access to a state highway is controlled. Highway 94 has a functional classification of a Rural Minor Arterial with an access category classification of a non-rural regional highway (NR-A), which allows for access points no closer than ½ mile. The access Code indicates that the NR-A classification is to be used for significant regional routes in rural areas, which is consistent with the characterization of Highway 94.
The most recent Highway 94 Comprehensive Plan, completed in 2003, contemplates “Activity Nodes” and accesses in the vicinity of Highway 94 at both Curtis Road and Enoch Road, major roadways serving the Schriever Air Force Base. Related Links and Documents