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City of Cañon City Referendum 2A Program

Transportation

Owner's representative for a decade of street repair.

In November 2016, Cañon City voters approved Referendum 2A, a one-percent sales tax increase dedicated exclusively to contracting out street repair and replacement. The tax generates an average of $3.5 million a year across a 10-year program — $9 million of design-build work in the first year, 2017, followed by annual design-bid-build programs every year since.

Vivid serves as the City’s prime consultant and owner’s representative for the program. Our team performs geotechnical investigations; prepares pavement designs for composite pavement, full-depth reclamation, and asphalt and concrete mill-and-overlay; and delivers civil plans and specifications covering roadway plan and profile, utility relocations, drainage, streetscape and ADA compliance, Safe Routes to School, stormwater management, quantities, and engineer’s estimates, with Wilson & Company preparing civil plans as a subconsultant. Vivid supports bid document preparation, bid award, and pre-construction meetings, then serves as construction engineer through the build — providing construction inspection, quality management, and materials testing on every project. The result is a program that has steadily rebuilt the streets Cañon City residents voted to fix.

Project Details

  • Client

    City of Cañon City

  • Project Value

    Average $3.5 million per year over 10 years

  • Timeline

    10-year program, approved November 2016

  • Sector

    Transportation

  • Services

    Construction Inspection & Testing

  • Transportation

    30th Street Corridor

    30th Street, Fontanero Street to Garden of the Gods Road, Colorado Springs, CO

    30th Street is the main route into Garden of the Gods Park, carrying park visitors, neighborhood traffic, and cyclists on a narrow, winding two-lane road with little margin for error. The City of Colorado Springs' 30th Street Corridor Improvement Project rebuilt roughly three miles between Mesa Road and Fontanero Street: widening the roadway with paved multi-use shoulders, adding a roundabout at Gateway Road, upgrading intersections, building a pedestrian underpass, and installing a new storm sewer system with a water quality pond. More than 2,000 feet of retaining walls and 6,300 feet of soldier pile were needed to hold the widened road on the hillside.<br /> <br /> Vivid Engineering led quality assurance testing and served on the construction inspection team for the project, verifying soils, concrete, and asphalt — including some 14,000 tons of asphalt and 21,000 feet of curb and gutter — against project specifications. The improvements strengthened emergency access and evacuation routes and created safer travel for motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians on the way into one of the region's most visited parks.

  • Transportation

    SH 7 Permanent Repairs Project

    CO 7, South St. Vrain Canyon, Lyons to Raymond (MP 19 to 33), Boulder County, CO

    The September 2013 flood devastated Colorado Highway 7 through the South St. Vrain Canyon, severely damaging or completely washing away nine miles of roadway and cutting off canyon access for two and a half months. Temporary repairs reopened the road, but a permanent fix had to wait. The SH 7 Permanent Repairs Project — the final permanent infrastructure project of Colorado's $750 million 2013 Flood Recovery Program, funded through FHWA Emergency Relief — permanently rebuilt 14 miles of the canyon between Lyons and Raymond. The $60 million project replaced temporary post-flood asphalt with a fully reconstructed roadway, restored 11,500 linear feet of St. Vrain Creek to a resilient natural channel, rebuilt embankments and drainage, added rockfall ditches and a four-foot uphill bicycle shoulder, and revegetated 28 acres of disturbed canyon — all while meeting a net-zero construction waste goal.<br /> <br /> Vivid Engineering Group worked alongside Kiewit Infrastructure Co. and CDOT Region 4 from September 2021 through November 2022, providing field and laboratory materials testing of soils, aggregates, concrete, and asphalt to verify that every material placed met CDOT standards — including the 38,500 tons of asphalt that make up the new canyon roadway. In a narrow canyon with a single access road and an active creek restoration underway, Vivid's technicians kept sampling and testing on the contractor's schedule so the corridor could reopen as planned.

  • Transportation

    Cañon City's 2A Street Repair

    1st Street and Main Street, Cañon City, CO 81212

    In November 2016, Cañon City voters approved Referendum 2A, a one-percent sales tax dedicated entirely to repairing and replacing the city's streets. The 2024 program year was one of the largest to date: a $6.55 million slate that included full reconstruction of 1st and Main Street from US 50 to 4th Street and Pear Avenue from 19th Street to Field Avenue, along with resurfacing of 5th Street between Fairview Avenue and High Street and Harrison Avenue between 9th and 15th Streets. Year by year, the 2A program has worked through the roughly two-thirds of city streets once rated in poor condition.<br /> <br /> Vivid Engineering served as project manager and the inspection and testing lead for the 2024 work — managing construction on the City's behalf, inspecting reconstruction and paving operations, and testing soils, aggregates, concrete, and asphalt against project specifications. The result is a set of rebuilt downtown streets that meet national standards and will serve Cañon City for decades.

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