El Paso County commissioners on Tuesday approved a consulting services contract to help determine the current state of its transportation infrastructure and the extent of its compliance with federal law.

Commissioners awarded a $749,954 contract to Colorado Springs-based consulting firm Matrix Design Group Inc. to evaluate El Paso County’s transportation network system and determine its compliance with the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, a federal law mandating public facilities be made equally accessible for those with disabilities.

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The consultant will also help create a GIS-based inventory and assist with county planning and design efforts for required upgrades.

Commissioners unanimously approved the contract without discussion Tuesday, with Commissioner Holly Williams absent.

Jack Ladley, El Paso County’s interim Public Works director, said Tuesday the consulting firm will provide “a complete inventory of our ADA infrastructure,” including “compliance of existing signals, pedestrian ramps (and) sidewalks, and identify some of our missing compliance infrastructure.”

He expects the study will find compliance needs particularly in rural parts of unincorporated El Paso County, where “country roads” are without curbs, gutters and sidewalks, for example. Older, more well-established neighborhoods built prior to the 1990 federal law or before ADA regulations changed are other areas he expects will need upgrades.

Other areas of the county where new development has boomed, such as Falcon, could require fewer or no upgrades.

“Anecdotally, we’re probably sitting pretty good in those areas because we are building to those (ADA) standards,” he said. 

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It could take about a year for the consultants to complete their survey, Ladley said, due to its intensive boots-on-the-ground nature. 

“The icing on the cake, if you would, is it’s going to help us establish a robust asset management system for key and critical transportation infrastructure projects,” he said. A GIS-based inventory is something the county has been lacking, he said.

“We have data, but it’s on spreadsheets. What we’re trying to do is put together an asset management system that we can query data from and help us make decisions,” he said.

The money for the study is coming out of the county’s designated road and bridge fund, meeting documents show. The study is part of a roughly $3 million intergovernmental agreement commissioners approved last September with the Colorado Department of Transportation to fund creation of a compliance plan to bring identified county infrastructure like curb ramps, sidewalks, striping and traffic signals into ADA compliance.

That $3 million is funded as part of a Multimodal Transportation and Mitigation Options Fund grant, Ladley said. About $1.5 million comes from the state and the remaining $1.5 million is matched by the county. Any remaining cash could be used for construction, as well.

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