The original language attached to the FY 2000 Congressionally Designated Earmark calls for the project funding to be used within Arapahoe and Jefferson Counties in the Denver area. As a large portion of the Southeast Corridor (SEC) project passes through Arapahoe County, the first component of the project will focus on start-up integration activities for the SEC. That work will concentrate on development of center-to-center interfaces between C.D.O.T. and the following agencies, all of which currently participate in ongoing task forces planning the SEC project:

· Arapahoe County
· Aurora
· Colorado State Patrol
· Denver
· Douglas County
· Englewood
· Greenwood Village
· Littleton
· Regional Transportation District (RTD)

Integration activities undertaken herein will allow a jump start of the SEC deployment program such that C.D.O.T. is better positioned to successfully operate, manage, and maintain I-25 when construction starts in earnest. Early integration will allow corridor agencies to share information, manage incidents, pool surveillance data and other resources, and determine efficient methodologies with which to disseminate traveler information to the public. Simply stated, the funding for this project will be used to help mitigate the impact of the SEC construction work.

Pending Federal Highway Association approval, C.D.O.T. may also use a component of the funding to help accelerate development of the Colorado Transportation Management Center (CTMC) to Colorado Spring's interface, a project that is underway as part of the CTMS. The Colorado Springs Traffic Operations Center provides freeway and surface street management in Colorado Springs (El Paso County) and southern Douglas County. In addition, this center can be used to provide information to the traveler heading north to Denver along I-25. As of this date, the theory of operations and system requirements for that interface are complete, and the two parties have initiated a work station exchange as an interim measure; however, there may be insufficient funding allocated to move beyond the design stage.

The Jefferson County component of the project will be addressed as follows. As part of the CTMS, C.D.O.T. is developing a C2C interface with the City of Lakewood. Additional CTMS activities include development of a low-speed communications architecture intended for deployment activities, and enhancing or providing better internal integration for the following subsystems: weather, "central" closed circuit television (CCTV), automated traffic recorder (ATR), highway advisory radio (HAR), variable message signs (VMS), and enhancing C.D.O.T.'s kiosk and Internet information dissemination subsystems. As the CTMC and Lakewood are within Jefferson County, C.D.O.T. proposes to use a second component of the project funding to accelerate the referenced integration activities (including the Lakewood interface), as well as, develop initial planning for additional Jefferson County C2C interfaces.

C.D.O.T. Region 6 (R6) is a Colorado leader in the development of incident management and response planning. I-25 through the DTC (i.e. SEC through Arapahoe County and the surrounding) has a mature incident management plan, and 6th Avenue (US-6) through Denver and the western suburbs (i.e. Jefferson County) is a second corridor, which R6 will study in additional detail this year. Both plans call for coordinated incident management between a number of enforcement and response agencies. Consequently, at C.D.O.T.'s discretion and with the approval of FHWA, portions of the project funding will be used for integration to enforcement or emergency response agencies in order to enhance coordination and information exchange.