Thornton City Council allocated funding for the Interstate 25 North Managed Lane Extension and Express Bus Project.

At its Dec. 4 regular meeting, council unanimously approved $1.75 million for the highway improvements, that will include the area between U.S. Highway 36 and 120th Avenue.

Assistant City Manager Joyce Hunt said the $44 million project is subsidized with a mixture of federal funds and local contributions from seven surrounding municipalities, including Adams, Broomfield and Weld counties along with the cities of Federal Heights, Northglenn, Thornton and Westminster.

“What really led to the success of the funding of this project was the coming together of the counties and cities to make a significant contribution to this project,” Hunt said. “This is actually a very important project for the north area, because … it’ll provide a very important congestion relief for an interim period, which could be a while, until the permanent improvements are constructed to add general purpose lanes through that area at some point in the future.”

Thornton’s contribution to the project will be doled out over a three-year period beginning next year.

The project, which is expected to be completed by summer 2015, calls for the construction of one new managed lane in each direction on I-25 between U.S. 36 and 120th by narrowing the inside shoulder of the existing thoroughfare.

This six-mile stretch of highway would then be repaved and installed with a new one-mile noise wall to accompany an existing three-mile noise wall.

Public transit and high occupancy vehicles with two or more passengers will be allowed free access to the continuous managed lanes, while all other vehicles will be assessed a toll.

In all, Hunt said $34 million of the project will be funded through the state grants from the Funding Advancements for Surface Transportation and Economic Recovery (FASTER) program and federal grants through the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program. Apart from the $4,525,000 contributed by surrounding cities and counties, the remaining $5.8 million balance will be funded by Denver Regional Council of Governments federal funds and RTD local transit funds.