SH 7 Permanent Repairs Project

Rebuilding a canyon highway lost to the 2013 flood.

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.

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.