A troubled portion of Highway 115 running through northern Fremont County is riding somewhat better after state transportation crews wrapped up paving work there this summer. The improvement addresses a corridor that had been left rough between two separate, larger CDOT investments on either side.
The freshly paved area amounts to four miles divided among several segments, located a short distance south of the El Paso County line. To the north sits a Highway 115 safety project in El Paso County that was finished in 2024, while to the south a separate effort to fix hundreds of cracked concrete panels near Penrose is still wrapping up.
The treatment was maintenance paving rather than a full reconstruction — meaning crews laid down new asphalt on top of the road that already existed, without first removing the old material beneath. That approach is less disruptive and less expensive, but it also delivers a shorter lifespan than a ground-up rebuild would.
CDOT said no money is currently available for a complete rebuild of that segment for the foreseeable future, and that the maintenance surface put down this summer should hold somewhere between two and five years.
The agency pointed to "alligator cracking" as the core problem afflicting the pavement, a condition brought on by the road's age combined with freeze-and-thaw weather cycles and sustained pressure from heavy commercial vehicles. That kind of damage is common on rural state highways that carry freight traffic through areas with significant seasonal temperature swings.
Whether CDOT can identify funding for a full reconstruction before the current surface deteriorates will be a key question to follow in future state transportation budget discussions.