Good News: Your Drive Through Longmont Has Been Made Much Safer

It's great when Colorado Department of Transportation gets involved in a situation to improve safety for those of us out on the roads around Denver and Longmont.

How Many People Travel on Highway 119 Through Longmont?

One of Colorado's busiest traffic corridors is Colorado Highway 119 between Longmont and Boulder. Upwards of 45,000 vehicles a day, from Denver to Fort Collins, use that highway, including the Diagonal; the Diagonal, just west of Longmont is where many accidents have happened.

Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) expects a 25% increase in traffic on Highway 119 by 2040, which, if they let things stand as they were, more and more people would be in accidents resulting in injury; so, they took action.

What Roads in Longmont Are Involved in CDOT's Decision?

Airport Road is a major North-South road on the west side of Longmont; it take drivers from 17th Avenue out to Highway 119. Getting onto 119 southbound off of Airport Road is not an issue; getting onto Northbound 119 from Airport Road, however, was.

READ MORE: Who Was Longmont's Ken Pratt?

People wanting to go north on Highway 119 had a stop sign at the intersection of 119 and Airport Road; once making a left to get onto 119, there wasn't enough room to get up to 55 m.p.h. right away, and that was causing sideswipes and rear-end accidents. Most of those (85%) resulted in injury.

CDOT Moves to Make Longmont Turnoff Safer By Eliminating It

In March of 2026, CDOT announced that they'd be shutting that one southbound lane of Airport Road down, making it two northbound lanes, instead.

Those wanting to get onto northbound Highway 119 from Airport will now, most-likely, will be taking Nelson Road out to the Ken Pratt Boulevard and Highway 119 intersection.