DENVER (KDVR) — The Colorado Department of Transportation joined area leaders Monday to celebrate the completion of part of a major infrastructure project. State leaders said the project is one of many more to come.

The Interstate 70 bridge over 32nd Avenue project was paid for using a combination of federal and state dollars — state dollars that were not always a popular concept among people living in Colorado.

Perlmutter: More infrastructure work than in decades

Leaders were celebrating the completion of the bridge over 32nd Avenue over I-70 in Jefferson County. If you feel like you have been seeing more construction projects across the state, leaders said you probably have.

“Under the bipartisan infrastructure bill, coupled with the Senate Bill 260, we have more infrastructure projects going on in Colorado today than at any time since the interstate highway system was conceived back in the 1950s and early ’60s,” former U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter said. He represented Jefferson County during his tenure in Congress.

“Projects people have wanted to see done for a long, long time are happening because we invested public dollars,” CDOT Executive Director Shoshana Lew said.

The $9 million project that was unveiled Monday was funded by federal money combined with money from the state’s infrastructure bill that passed in 2021. That law caused some commotion because of the introduction of new retail delivery fees on services like DoorDash and Amazon.

“Parts of U.S. 50 have gotten repaired because of it. Many, many projects at I-70 and I-25 that are getting done directly because of those fees,” Lew said. “The benefits are that we are getting projects just like this one done. You know there are projects big and small. You point to a part of Colorado, and there’s some infrastructure that’s gotten fixed in the last few years thanks to that bill.”

CDOT leaders note this project is one of several in the area set to be completed soon. They say these I-70 improvements have needed attention for a long time.