The City of Fruita is a growing community on the Western Slope of Colorado that has seen an increase in residential development over the past few years. A good portion of this
growth has occurred east of the core area of the city. As such, more traffic is being directed away from established urban roads towards roads that are more suited to rural traffic loads.
In particular, 19 Rd. from Highway 6 & 50 has seen an uptick in traffic. It is anticipated that due to increases in residential subdivision applications and recent school changes, this
corridor will see additional traffic in the near future. In order to accommodate the growth, the City is in the process of designing improvements to the existing road section and utility infrastructure on 19 Rd. Included in the design are irrigation, storm drainage and sewer infrastructure improvements as well as road widening.
It is anticipated that construction of these improvements will begin in late fall/early winter of 2024.
One of the major infrastructure issues that the City faces is the current box culvert that passes the Independent Ranchman’s Canal under 19 Rd. from east to west. The culvert is
older and somewhat deteriorated, and is too narrow to accommodate the proposed lane changes. It is the City’s intention to remove the existing culvert structure, construct new
utilities and sleeves for future utilities under the alignment following the removal, and then to install a new box culvert wide enough to accommodate the proposed road section.
