Greeley will try for $117M federal infrastructure grant to revamp U.S. 34 interchanges

By Trenton Sperry

The Greeley City Council on Tuesday gave enthusiastic support to the city’s public works department as it pursues a massive federal grant to rework U.S. 34 interchanges at 35th and 47th avenues, as well as to create a public transit hub at Centerplace.

The $117.5 million proposal – which would require $31.5 million in spending by the city – would seek a $70.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, $8 million in spending by the Colorado Department of Transportation, and a $7.5 million grant from the North Front Range Metropolitan Planning Organization.

The federal portion would seek $70.5 million in the form of an Infrastructure for Rebuilding America grant. That program was expanded as part of the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed by Congress and signed by the Biden administration this past year. The INFRA program is offering applicants $7.25 billion through fiscal year 2026.

The two largest components of Greeley’s proposal are reworked interchanges for U.S. 34 at 35th and 47th Avenues.

The interchange at 35th Avenue would be converted to a “tight diamond with parclo-loop” configuration, according to city documents, at an estimated cost of $47 million.

The interchange at 47th Avenue would be converted to a “diverging diamond” configuration, according to city docs, at a cost of $45 million.

Paul Trombino III, Greeley’s director of public works, said the diverging diamond system looks complicated at first, but he said the design is proving popular across the country.

“A diverging diamond really shifts the traffic from one side to the other as you pass through,” Trombino said. “What it really does is free up the ramp movements so they become more of a free movement and not a stop movement. And so it really reduces a lot of points of intersection and constraint within an interchange design.

“It doesn’t really feel like you’re on the wrong side of the road. It’s a very easy movement. … They do function really well in urban areas especially, because you can actually squeeze them into really tight-fit areas.”

Both projects would involve lifting U.S. 34 over Greeley’s avenues, and Trombino said that’s long been a goal for the interchanges anyway.

“Both of these have significant enhancements on traffic movement,” Trombino said.

The final component of the grant proposal is a “mobility hub” at Centerplace at an estimated cost of $25 million. That piece would include a local bus station in the southeast corner of the shopping center, as well as a pedestrian tunnel underneath U.S. 34 that would link the neighborhoods south of Centerplace to the commercial area.

The bus station area would include ADA parking, microtransit parking, electric vehicle parking and charging stations, and scooter and bike share stations. The pedestrian tunnel would include stairs and elevator access up to a regional bus station in the middle of U.S. 34, Trombino said.

“The transportation system itself was built differently over about 150 years,” he said. “It starts a little bit with water, rail, roads, air. They’re all separate elements, and a lot of times the system doesn’t necessarily have what I call seamless connection.

“And so what mobility hubs really do in a couple of different ways is they allow those connection points so it becomes a seamless point for a person, for us, to travel from one point – or one mode – to another.”

One important facet of that, Trombino said, is improved scalability.

“It starts as one thing and then it evolves over time as modes and connectivity and development and other things happen around it,” Trombino said of mobility hubs.

The public works director stressed that he’s hopeful the city will land the grant money because the city has done a good job of telling the story of Greeley’s massive growth.

“We’re a young community,” Trombino said. “Close to 60% of our population is under the age of 29. These are the types of transportation investments that I think allow us to really grow with that community and the demographics that we have long-term. And so that’s the big thing that we’re trying to emphasize.

“We’ve had a number of meetings with (the U.S. Department of Transportation) to help prep them for conversations about this. And when we talk about Greeley – who we are as a city and the growth that we’re seeing – they, like, light up. It’s a very different conversation. It has less to do with the transportation components, but they start understanding why all the components in the grant are very, very impactful for who we are – not only today, but where I think we all see us going in the future.”

Word on whether Greeley has won approval for the grant proposal is expected in the fall.