FAQs

A new access road was identified as necessary to:

• Provide a longer access road to increase vehicle storage and prevent backups onto local roadways
• Reduce congestion and provide safe opportunities to exit the park when at capacity
• Remove the conflict and impact to the operation of Bally’s Arapahoe Park Horse Track and Arapahoe County Fairgrounds

 The current Powhaton Road and reservoir entrance is privately owned by Bally’s. At times of live racing, people often cannot get into their facility due to long reservoir lines extending a mile or more. With the existing entrance being privately owned, the city also doesn’t have the ability to improve the existing entrance. The creation of a new access road will also provide a secondary emergency access route. The current configuration is inadequate with the existing single two-lane access from Quincy Avenue south on Powhaton Road as the only means of egress. 

The benefit in shifting the access point to Harvest Road would be to provide an adequate length of roadway to queue vehicles during full capacity days, holidays and events. The proposed access road will provide safe entry points for alternate modes of transportation like bikes, scooters and walking. The new access will route all vehicle access to the Aurora Reservoir through the entry gate instead of allowing vehicles to access the dam, SCUBA and archery areas without having to pass through entry station/gatehouse.

Eighty-five to 90% of the traffic going to the reservoir comes from the north. Locating the access point as far north on Harvest Road as possible will minimize traffic impacts along Harvest Road.

Infinity Middle School will not be impacted as the vast majority of park visitors arrive from the north on Harvest Road and will turn east onto Whitaker Road or Belleview Avenue to access the reservoir. Infinity Middle School allows drop-off/pickup on the north side of the school along Belleview Road, but the primary drop-off/pickup is at the front of the school further south off the school’s private drive.

The busiest times for middle school traffic are on weekdays from mid-August until Memorial Day weekend while the busiest times for reservoir traffic are on weekends between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Any overlap will be minimal. The city will coordinate with the Cherry Creek School District to minimize any potential impacts to school operations, including Infinity and the bus maintenance facility.

This route will not impact the Bally’s horse stables as there is a chain link fence between the two properties and ample distance between the stables and the proposed entrance road alignment.

Harvest Road follows the city standard design of a four-lane, median-separated minor arterial roadway south of Whitaker Drive. A four-lane minor arterial can generally carry approximately 22,500 to 25,500 vehicles per day (Northeast Aurora Transportation Study Refresh, 2018) while maintaining a “C” Level of Service grade (best grade being “A” and worst being “F”).

Currently, Harvest Road is carrying an existing average daily traffic of approximately 5,000 to 7,000 vehicles per day. This is well within the “A” range for traffic carrying capacity.

Based on current usage of the Aurora Reservoir access road, the Aurora Reservoir Access Analysis Memo indicates that the reservoir access will add approximately 1,200 daily trips to Harvest Road, with approximately 100-150 peak hourly trips, should the access be relocated to Harvest Road.

When existing and reservoir traffic is added together, Harvest Road operations and capacity is still well within the standard of expected Level of Service for a 4-lane minor arterial.

On the busiest days at the reservoir, the current traffic backups on Powhaton Road are about 1 mile long. Alternative 5 is 1.4 miles in length, so the city does not anticipate queuing backups onto Harvest Road.

This project will not install additional traffic control on Harvest Road. 

There is a separate design that is underway that will reconfigure the intersection of Harvest Road and Belleview Ave to a roundabout. This separate project is intended to alleviate traffic concerns with vehicular and pedestrian activity from Infinity Middle School at drop off and pickup.

The roundabout configuration has proven to be able to handle more traffic throughput at a higher efficiency with greater safety outcomes than both traditional all-way stop and traffic signal installations at the traffic volumes that are projected long term.

The plan did identify a future access point at that location as part of the plan for a proposed community park. However, the road was intended to serve park uses primarily, not to operate as a main entrance to the reservoir. Ultimately, the development on this park property began with the newly built Southeast Recreation Center, and the access point to the property was subsequently built on Alexander Drive.

While Alexander Drive was one of the alternatives considered for this new access road project, the Whitaker/Belleview alternative was ultimately selected to separate recreation users from reservoir users, reduce costs and increase environmental protections.

The original master plan noted that “as more complete plans are made for other facilities in this area, the master plan will be amended following additional opportunities for public input.”

The capacity of Quincy Avenue was not analyzed as part of this study because past traffic analyses show that Quincy Avenue currently does not have any congestion issues aside from shorter event-related traffic (i.e. the Arapahoe County Fair). If the city were to keep the access road to Aurora Reservoir on Quincy Avenue, there would be no traffic capacity concerns for Quincy in its current configuration.

Alternative 5 has a much lower impact on the numerous plant and animal species when compared to the other alternatives. The alignment follows already impacted soils remaining from the Infinity Middle School construction. The route follows existing 8-foot-high cyclone fencing, which limits the crossing corridors for mule deer and pronghorn. With its alignment on the far north of the property, this will minimize the impact to fawning areas typically located on or much closer to other alternative routes. If the city chooses the Whitaker Avenue alternative, the roadway is already graded and the storm sewer and water infrastructure has already been constructed around the bus depot.