The City of Colorado Springs, at the request of the Eagle Rock neighborhood, is installing a gate on Stanton Road that will limit vehicular access through the neighborhood. Campus users who travel between west campus and central campus and use the neighborhood will experience a temporary road closure July 27-31, with a full closure no later than August 3 when the gate is expected to be operational.
Barricades will be placed on Stanton Road July 27 ahead installation work July 30. The gate is expected to be installed by July 31 but will be open until hardware and power connections are complete. The gate is expected to be closed and operational by August 3 according to city engineers. All traffic will be limited to Austin Bluffs Parkway and N. Nevada Ave. at the point.
Signs were installed in fall 2017 that indicated no thru traffic in the neighborhood for people traveling between the two areas of campus, but traffic could still flow without interruption. The new gate will stop traffic on Stanton Road near the entrance to lot 540. Pedestrians, cyclists and small utility vehicles (golf carts, all-terrain vehicles, etc.) will be able to pass around the gate.
Work for an internal “Pioneer Road” that will connect the two areas of campus without going through the neighborhood is in planning stages in line with the 2012 Master Plan. UCCS and the City of Colorado Springs are working on funding options that would allow internal campus traffic to use the Pioneer Road and return traffic capacity for Austin Bluffs Parkway and N. Nevada Ave.
There is currently no satisfactory bicycle path from campus down to University Village.
The Eagle Rock neighborhood provides the only safe passage for cyclists from campus to the underpass near the Ent Center for the Arts as there is currently no connecting path from the north east corner of the Nevada/Austin Bluffs intersection toward the Ent Center.
How does UCCS intend to ensure safe passage for cyclists?
How will that be safe for people who live in alpine towalk and/or bike down to the ENT center for classes when it gets to be below freezing and it’s snowing? That isn’t safe for students. Why should they have to either walk all the way to centennial to take a bus over when it is icy and snowing and then wait for a bus that could be potentially late in the winter weather.
The gate is being installed by the City of Colorado Springs, not by UCCS. The university is working on a road connection in coordination with the city that will bypass the neighborhood as an alternative route for Austin Bluffs Parkway and North Nevada Avenue. The gate on Stanton Road will allow pedestrians, cyclists and small utility vehicles to continue using the road.
When it comes to public roadways and parking, their is no bottom to how low UCCS will go.
Why are taxpayer funded roadways and being shut down to the taxpaying public?
Shame on UCCS for the confutation of predatory parking practices against its own students and faculty!
Shawn – the gate is being installed by the City of Colorado Springs, not by the university, and the city will be able to answer your direct question. UCCS is working on a new road that will allow faculty, staff, students and guests to move between west campus and central campus without having to use Austin Bluffs Parkway or North Nevada Avenue. That road was identified as a project in the 2012-2020 Master Plan, and the priority for that project has been escalated with the plan by the city to install the gate on Stanton Road.
@ Jared Verner and the UCCS parking fiasco
For the citizens of this County, taking away what is legally ours (what we pay for with our taxes), with no intention of returning it, IS the definition of theft.
Jared, since you seem to be working SO closely with the City on this Master Plan, and since it seems to change in lock-step with the City’s agenda, you should co-issue a statement that explains why large swaths of public property around the UCCS campus that have been STOLEN from taxpaying citizens and that endangers the lives of students and faculty forced to cross Austin Bluffs and Nevada Ave (respectively) everyday to get to work or school.
I think you are tinkering with the safety of an entire community here and I’d like answers rather than being told to “ask the city.”
Your the As. Director of University Communications and Media Relations, try doing your job instead of passing off my questions to the City.
This plan to shut Stanton rd. increases volume on an already stressed and unsafe infrastructure faculty/students/staff use to travel to a from campus. The record of last years injuries accidents and fatalities makes this point more than self-evident!
When the FREE LOTS fill up (and they always do because free parking is a myth at UCCS!!!), students and faculty who need to come to campus on a full-time basis are forced to pay for parking at CRAZY rates!
For example an employee making $9.25/hr must pay $2/hr to park on campus. This brings the pay down to minimum wage! Of course, the employee making 9.25 /hr can buy a parking pass, but the price for that (including the cmpulsory parking fee) exceeds $600/year.
So Jared, how is it then that all of PPCC, whom is also publicly funded, can provide parking to all of their students for free while UCCS charges students and staff/faculty without mercy? There are NOT enough shuttles to keep up with student enrollment/volume, and furthermore, those that cannot afford parking are provided with little recourse. Closing Stanton is a continuation of the same UNSAFE policies!!!
Jared, your confutations on this page signal your complicity in this crime against students and faculty. I wonder, do you pay for parking at UCCS? and If so, what is your take on the pricing and the fact that parking was once free at UCCS not so long ago?
I say give those that struggle with the parking mess at UCCS a freaking break, and address these issues before UCCS is forced to preside over more unfortunate traffic accidents and injuries, (or worse as we witnessed last year with the death of a student!) What gives?
@ Jared V- I wholeheartedly disagree with your assessment that the plans for Pioneer Rd. are “in-line with the Master Plan”
and I agree, with Shawn about doing your job.
While the UCCS Master Plan does make note of a “spine” connecting the “disconnected” North Campus with the Main Campus, the plans stipulate this to have been accomplished in 2017. Now with Stanton Rd. closed, this problem of “disconnection” mentioned so often in the master plan will be exacerbated, and yes, at the cost of the safety of the community. The shuttles do not currently run to accommodate the faulty/staff/student population and they operate on a dangerous and busy infrastructure already stressed by thru-traffic.
Accountability for failing on the UCCS master plan should be at issue this year at UCCS as should be the question, why doesn’t the master plan have any mention of student safety whist it agrees with the shutdown of a publicly funded roadway ????
Bewm!
Did the neighborhood privatize the road? If not, how is it legal to put up a gate on a public road?
Why wasn’t it completed already? Easy. Look at the new ENT Center and the new Field House. New buildings to entice more students are always completed before infrastructure is build to accommodate them, because safety and stress reduction of current faculty, staff, and students is always of secondary concern to money.
Building more parking decks/lots/roads doesn’t make them money. Simple supply and demand. If there is more parking available than needed, the demand goes down and the complaints of paying for parking, when there’s more than enough to go around, go up. What makes me the angriest, is when I have to park 1/2 mile away from class in free parking when I pay hundreds of dollars a year for parking. That is the theft, not providing myself or others with what we payed for.
It’s easy to fix too, that’s whats terrible and shows the incompetence, or just plain greed, of those making these decisions. You should pay for the Lot you want to park in (which is what my last Uni did with a student population of <30k). Say there’s 800 spots in the deck at Columbine for non-visitors, you set a limit on how many you sell for M/W/F, T/TR, and you don’t go over it. But again, if they can charge 8k students for the 5k parking spots….they’re rolling in the dough and laughing because they have a dedicated spot. They just don’t care guys.
I am curious since the Eagle Rock neighborhood clearly does not want UCCS students or faculty to travel through their neighborhood will they be barred from traveling through campus? I have seen Eagle Rock community members diving up Stanton road and past Alpine Garage and the Roaring Fork dinning Hall to get access to Austin Bluffs Parkway without having to deal with the hill from Nevada Avenue. Will this behavior cease with the installment of this gate?
That is a public road and it should not be closed to through traffic. Other neighborhoods have much more intense traffic and I don’t see them putting up gates to close a public road. Action should be taken to reverse this decision.
For people with vehicles with front wheel drive, older vehicles that may be wearing out even with 4 wheel drive, or simply vehicles unsafe to drive in snow, this road was a safer way to and from campus during icy conditions. Another commenter noted that there is already supposed to be another road constructed (as of 2017) that “connects” the main campus. Without this other added connecting road, this closure endangers UCCS students and staff who will have to travel up and down the Austin Bluffs hill in ice and snow, many at night. And for what, so that people living on houses on a public road do not have to treat the homes they bought as being on a public road, even a public road off of a main throughway? If they are going to privatize their road, they should be paying for the construction of an alternative rout. Furthermore, saying that students can still walk or bike does nothing to address the issues of ice, snow, and potentially traveling at night.
Mr. Verner seems content to push the responsibility of this mess off to the city, and directs us to pass our comments onto the city as well. He, however, does not address what the school is doing about this if anything. Is the school appealing this decision in any way, lobbying the city? Does the school care? Will the connecting road, already a year overdue to my understanding, be pushed up in priority? Thank you for the article, Mr. Verner, now what else can you tell us? As it stands, your responses make it appear that UCCS does not care about safety, and I do not have any information that would show me otherwise.
Who is paying for this gate?
I am a commuter, and I always use the free lot by the Ent Center and use the shuttles. I know that it is possible for the free lots to fill up, but I have never had a problem finding a spot, and never had a problem taking the shuttle to get to the main campus.
Putting a gate on the road is a HUGE disadvantage to UCCS faculty, staff, and students, however it is the city that put it up, not UCCS. Any spokesperson for UCCS is offering a straightforward truth when they say this is not something UCCS can control. Attacking them is inappropriate.
UCCS is responding by prioritizing a road to connect the campus. If you think they should do something more, such as lobby the city to remove the gate, then that suggestion can be made and responded to.
It is a good question how the city has the right to close a private road. I’m interested in finding the answer. Is it actually considered a private road?
This is definitely an important issue for UCCS to address. I am glad they are doing so in a timely and professional manner.