Higby Road Is Finished, and Your Fall Commute Is Now the Traffic Study

The Higby Road widening officially ended on Friday, September 25, 2026, with a 10 a.m. ribbon cutting. KRDO reported the six-month, two-mile project finished several weeks early. Losing the detours is welcome news by itself. The longer-lasting result is quieter. Monument and the Triview Metropolitan District held off on counting traffic across the east side until Higby was done, so the trips you make this fall are the first clean data they'll use to plan for a Jackson Creek Parkway that will look very different by late 2027.

What got built between Jackson Creek Parkway and Harness

The work ran in two halves. The west half went past the main entrance to Lewis-Palmer High School and ended with intersection upgrades at Jackson Creek Parkway. The last stretch, between Bowstring Road and Harness Drive, finished on ribbon-cutting day. The early finish came from the school calendar. Contractors brought in extra workers so the first half would be done before fall semester started, and that put the whole schedule ahead.

Triview's August newsletter described the high school stretch. Here's what drivers, walkers and riders now have on that section:

• A roundabout giving access to the Lewis-Palmer High School parking lot, plus changes to the lot itself
• A new traffic signal and mast arms at Higby Road and Jackson Creek Parkway
• Turn lanes, a wider road surface, bike lanes, new curb and gutter, and sidewalks on both sides
• New streetlights, and no more overhead electric lines along that stretch
• A second roundabout at Higby and Bowstring, built during the final phase along with repaving, drainage work and power line relocation

Triview's design called for a 5-foot sidewalk along the north side and an 8-foot multiuse path along the south side for the whole length of the project. The district designed the high school roundabout as a safe crossing for students walking up from the homes south of Higby. If your kids walk to Lewis-Palmer, that roundabout is the change you'll see most during the school week.

Triview lists the cost at $12.6 million. It's paid for with general-obligation bonds and no tax increase, and the debt payments come from existing revenue: sales tax, the operations-and-maintenance mill levy, and developer contributions. Creekside Developers had put in $2.2 million and will add more as building continues along Higby's south side. That arrangement ties Higby to growth on its south side. The road was built with more homes and more trips in mind.

Why the counters waited for the cones to leave

At its August 20 meeting, Triview's board unanimously approved a cost-sharing agreement with the Town of Monument for a major regional traffic study. It costs about $400,000, split evenly between the town and the district.

District Manager Jim McGrady told the board the traffic counts wouldn't start until Higby was finished. Counting while the detours were up would have made other major roads look busier than they really are. For most of the summer, cars that normally use Higby were pushed onto other routes, especially once the Bowstring intersection closed, which the project schedule lists as running from July 30 through September 25. Any count taken then would have described a detour, not normal traffic.

Now Higby's lanes, signal and both roundabouts are in. With the detours gone, the counts will reflect how traffic moves on the finished road, and that is what will feed into the next round of decisions. Triview is also running its own corridor study with HR Green on Jackson Creek Parkway. It looks at current conditions and at how traffic will change as more businesses open along the parkway. A major piece is whether to add more access from Baptist Road to the retail areas along Jackson Creek Parkway. At the August meeting, that corridor study was already collecting counts and was expected to finish within about a month. Its results go into the larger joint study with the town.

Both studies are trying to answer the same question: how much more Jackson Creek Parkway can take.

What the counts will be measured against

The east side's commercial pipeline explains why the timing matters. Here's what has happened along the Jackson Creek Parkway corridor since midsummer, in order:

1. July 21: Panda Express opened Monument's first location at 16481 Cinematic View and gave $1,000 to Tri-Lakes Cares at its grand opening.
2. August 26: The Pikes Peak Regional Building Department issued a core-and-shell permit for a second building at 1330 Blevins Buckle Trail, next to the future Target.
3. August 31: Ryan Companies US got the building permit for a 129,000-square-foot Target at 1350 Blevins Buckle Trail. Inspectors were on site two days later.
4. September 21: Monument Town Council voted 7–0 to approve the final planned-unit development for a 7 Brew drive-through at 15822 Jackson Creek Parkway in Monument Marketplace. No opening date has been announced.
5. October 2027: The developer told KKTV in April that it expects the Target-anchored center to open around then.

That Target anchors Legacy at Jackson Landing, a new 30-acre development south and west of Blevins Buckle Trail and Jackson Creek Parkway. It's a separate project from Monument Marketplace, the Home Depot and Kohl's center just to the north. Mayor Mitch LaKind has confirmed to the Monument Independent that the signed tenants are Target, Marshalls, HomeGoods, Chick-fil-A and Firehouse Subs. The Chick-fil-A hasn't been approved yet. It's filed with the town as a restaurant with two drive-through lanes and is waiting on a Planning Commission hearing.

The road work on that end is the developer's job. Under the approved plan, Phase 1 includes widening Blevins Buckle Trail up to Jackson Creek Parkway, adding medians and turn lanes, realigning the north-south leg of Blevins Buckle, and installing a traffic signal at Blevins Buckle and Jackson Creek. The site plan also shows a 10-foot soft-surface trail looping around a stormwater pond in the southwest corner and running along the east side of I-25.

So the counts taken this fall will describe the parkway before any of the Legacy stores open. They'll show a new Panda Express and a 7 Brew that's approved but has no announced opening date. The Target will still be under construction, with its center not expected to open until around October 2027. That's the "before" picture the planners have been waiting for.

Where you can weigh in this fall

The joint study is going to involve the public. Triview reported that an open house for public comment was being scheduled, and that details would be posted on the district's website at triviewmetro.com. If you drive Higby to Jackson Creek Parkway at school drop-off, or leave Monument Marketplace at 5:30 on a weekday, those are the trips this study is meant to measure, and the open house is where they get described firsthand.

Higby also isn't the last project. On ribbon-cutting day, McGrady said the district was already looking at possible future projects. Triview's project page and the Higby Road project site are still the best places to check for official notices on that side of town.

Wondering how the finished Higby corridor and the stores coming to Jackson Creek Parkway might affect what your east-side Monument home is worth? Aimee Fletcher and The Fletcher Team follow these projects closely and are happy to talk through it with you. Receive Exclusive Listings & Free Home Valuation, and we'll put your home in the context of the roads and retail going in around it.