The Big Changes To Fix The Flooding Problems On I-235

Torrential rains Thursday morning turned Northbound I-235 at Northeast 50th Street into a large shallow red dirt-colored lake. 

ODOT’s 18 months into an 88-million-dollar Broadway Extension widening project. ODOT Spokesperson Lisa Shearer-Salim says it will widen I-235 from four to six lanes, but it will also alleviate flooding. 

“We had one drainage inlet from when it was built originally in the 80’s, we are planning to significantly increase that with 41 drainage inlets,” she said. “That’s a major upsize to help us deal with the capacity issues as we didn’t widen it out and make surface space to take care of it and keep it from flooding.” 

The project should be complete by early next year.