The need for a local major arterial has become even more critical as the east side of Colorado Springs has grown and developed. Traffic projections developed for the Pikes Peak Area Council of Government's (PPACG) Destination 2025: Transportation Plan for the Pikes Peak Region, which is based on projected amount and location of future growth in population and employment for the year 2025, show that the current capacity of many of the principal arterials in the region, including the Powers Corridor, is inadequate to carry the projected future traffic. The Plan also indicates the need for Powers to eventually be a grade-separated freeway in order to meet mandated air-quality standards for the Colorado Springs region in 2025.

It is recognized that growth in the Colorado Springs area is and will continue to be oriented in an easterly direction. Assuming this rate of growth continues, Marksheffel will require improvements to accommodate the traffic demand placed on it. To this end, El Paso County is planning for, and working towards, improvements to Marksheffel Drive as a major transportation facility. In addition, the City is planning for Banning Lewis Parkway to eventually be improved to a major facility as well.

However, proposed improvements to Powers are in response to an immediate and localized need to improve roadway capacity and to accommodate the local (i.e., in the immediate vicinity of Powers Boulevard) traffic demand on Powers itself. Although upgrading or improving Marksheffel may serve to alleviate future traffic demand in the vicinity of Marksheffel, it would have very little effect on the need for improvements to Powers Boulevard itself to handle the traffic demand placed on it for the various traffic generators on and nearby Powers.

Planning for the Powers Corridor has been in progress for decades, and has helped to preserve Powers as a major transportation facility, but the process takes time. Based on the projected need for a thoroughfare on the eastern side of Colorado Springs, local planning and zoning agencies have for several decades required developers to donate right-of-way along the Powers Corridor in an effort to achieve building setbacks that would hopefully preclude the need to displace businesses as Powers expands. As the Corridor developed, all attempts were made to limit direct access to Powers to expressway standards by placing cross streets at least ½-mile apart.

Powers Corridor was identified by the community and by transportation planners as a needed roadway improvement. The Environmental Assessment that has just begun for the Central section will look at all reasonable alternatives for improvements to the Powers Corridor, including the potential effect that other possible routes such as Marksheffel and Banning Lewis Parkway would have on the need for improvements to Powers. The corridor will provide a much-needed north-south travel route that will:

• Improve mobility in the fast-growing east side of the City



• Enhance intra- and inter-regional mobility in the region



• Increase the level of traffic safety



• Improve residential and commercial access



• Provide a more direct route between major employment and residential areas



• Provide direct access to the Colorado Springs Airport



• Serve as a link between several military facilities in the region, including the U.S Air Force Academy, Fort Carson, Peterson Air Force Base, NORAD, and Schriever Air Force Base