As officials are designing toll-lane extensions on Interstate 25 from U.S. 36 to 120th Avenue, Thornton staff is looking at additional ways to ease the congestion in Adams County.

Gene Putman, transportation and emergency manager for Thornton, will submit an application for FASTER funding to build a parking lot at the southeast corner of the intersection of Highway 7 and I-25.

“I’m trying to go after the incentive to have people stop at Highway 7 and get into a car-pool scenario,” Putman said, adding that then the car poolers can hop on the HOV/HOT lanes at 120th and not pay the toll fee.

The deadline for the Colorado Department of Transportation application is in September, and Putman said he is just now working on cost estimates.

The lot he is proposing will have space for approximately 745 cars. The lot is needed, he said, because the Regional Transportation District Wagon Road Park-n-Ride is overflowing, and RTD hasn’t shown interest in building a lot farther north at this time.

Putman said the proposed lot is a natural fit for the I-25 toll-lane extensions. That project stands at $44 million, and CDOT was recently notified that it qualified for a $15 million TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) grant.

“I was surprised we got the entire amount we asked for,” Putman said. “I’m going to speculate it was the amount of local partnership that came to the table; that shows local commitment.”

Several local governmental agencies, including Adams and Weld counties, Westminster, Thornton, Broomfield, Federal Heights and Northglenn, contributed a total of $5 million for the project.

Thornton’s commitment was $1.7 million, and Northglenn’s was $550,000.

“We’ll be proposing to make that commitment over three years at approximately $183,000 starting in 2013,” said Brook Svoboda, planning and development director for Northglenn, during the July 23 Northglenn City Council meeting.

He said construction will start in 2014 and be completed by the summer of 2015.