For students and Fort Collins residents who frequent the West Elizabeth corridor, which stems from Colorado State University’s main campus and extends toward Horsetooth Reservoir, changes are on the horizon.

Transfort is making plans to add a Bus Rapid Transit system, ranging from Mason Street and the CSU campus to the intersection of Overland Trail and West Elizabeth Street. Transfort routes 2, 3, 31 and 32, those most used by CSU students, will be most affected by the project.

“Right now, at this stage we’re in, it’s hard to give much detail (about the project),” said Spencer Smith, the civil engineering manager for the project. “The final design should be done around 2025. Transfort will come up with alternate plans for their bus routes, but we’ll work hard with them to keep their schedules.”

This project was first brought to the public in 2016, being taken on by the Fort Collins City Council that same year. The city then decided to start the design process, publishing the 30% plan in 2022.

“The planned connection to the existing MAX line will be a game changer, especially for people who rely on transit for getting around Fort Collins.” -Melina Dempsey, FC Moves senior transportation planner

“I’ve been leading this project from a planning perspective since I started with the city in 2017,” said Melina Dempsey, the senior transportation planner of FC Moves. “The project has gained a lot of support and momentum in the past handful of years since receiving funding for design. As a planner, it’s exciting to see a project evolve from an idea to reality, especially when it’s in the community you live in and love.”

The new BRT corridor will be 3 miles long and includes some major updates, resembling the MAX BRT that runs along Mason Street.

“This project will bring the BRT to the corridor,” Smith said. “This will help address a lot of transit needs and issues, … (and) improved bike lanes and sidewalks will be brought up to current standards. It’s not comfortable in some places, and some people don’t enjoy riding their bike or walking there. The bike lanes will be raised and protected. They’ll be up at curb level and away from the roadway.”

Dempsey echoed Smith, saying there will also be Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant sidewalks, protected bike lanes and protected intersections.

“The planned connection to the existing MAX line will be a game changer, especially for people who rely on transit for getting around Fort Collins,” Dempsey said. “I think we will see even more people riding transit along the corridor, with high-frequency service planned every seven and a half minutes during peak hours and more people using active modes because it will be and feel safer with the protected facilities.”

While the project has yet to be finalized, the funding for parts of it was given to the City of Fort Collins for the very west end of construction.

“We are applying for some federal grant money to cover the bulk of those costs (with) the Federal Transit Administration for (a) Small Starts grant,” Smith said. “We should hear back by early next year, sometime in the first quarter.”

Smith also said local businesses will be impacted, but they will work with business owners to come up with a plan that will minimize the impacts of construction.

“We would have a contractor on board that would look at phasing a project in such a way that we don’t have too onerous a closure,” said Brad Buckman, engineering department director for the City of Fort Collins. “So that means while we’re doing the construction, businesses would remain open, and so would access to those businesses.”

While plenty of planning and finalizing remains for Transfort and the City of Fort Collins, Smith said construction will start at the west end.

“We’re really excited about this project because our business is to try to create a safer transit infrastructure system,” Buckman said. “We’re trying to move towards what we call vision zero, which is no serious injuries or no death on the road as a result of inadequate infrastructure.”

Reach Rebekah Barry at news@collegian.com or on Twitter @RebekahB24708.