Welcome to the US 287 at Lamar web site

Project Background

In the early 1980's, City of Lamar and Prowers County officials began developing a vision for an alternate truck route around the City of Lamar. They believed that a truck route taking trucks off of US 287 would improve traffic safety in the community by reducing the current volume of truck traffic along Main Street through the city. A Task Force of local business owners and officials was created to promote the vision of a truck route. The Task Force approached the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) and requested that such a truck route be included in long range planning efforts. This request and subsequent actions by local and State officials led to a preliminary evaluation of a new US 287 alignment around Lamar.
CDOT initiated a Feasibility Study in early 1999. The study considered new roadway corridors for US 287 around the City of Lamar. Several corridors were developed and studied. The corridors were evaluated for their traffic operations, roadway design, drainage design, structural design and the potential environmental impacts. As a result of this evaluation, a preferred corridor was selected and presented to the public in the Spring 2000. The preferred corridor was a corridor located on the east side of Lamar extending (approximately 9 miles) from the southern end near County Road (C-C) north across the Arkansas River and connects to State Highway (SH) 196 north of Lamar. See Project Map. CDOT also recognized that an alternative truck route alone would not solve all of the safety and congestion issues through Lamar, so the project was defined to also include improvements to Main Street. The completion of the feasibility study and selection of the preferred corridor set the stage for CDOT to move forward on the next phase of project development - Environmental Assessment Study.