Denver Road Closures: Permits Fall Against Last Week and Last Year

Photo: Quentin Rice (OMNI) & Jeremy Silas Ulibarri (Jolt) — Imagination is Key

Plan around fewer permitted work zones than usual from Tuesday, October 27, 2026 to Monday, November 2, 2026. Denver's street occupancy permits cover 1,172 stretches, down from 1,492 the week before and 1,790 the same week last year, according to the City and County of Denver permit data. These are city permits for those dates, not confirmation that a street is closed.

The stretch count is down 21.4% on the week before and 34.5% on last year. Three kinds of closure carry most of the drop: lane closures on main streets (270, from 362), sidewalk closures (316, from 403) and full street or alley closures (135, from 165).

Detours barely moved, at 12 against 13. A driver meeting a lane closure on a main street this week is meeting fewer of them than a week ago.

Of the 135 full-closure stretches in effect, 47 begin this week; the rest are long-running. The city data prints only the earliest 25, in date order. Each row is a permit that allows a closure on those dates, not a closure observed.

Most of the one-day permits are Road/Alley Repair on Tuesday. The longest runs are W 28th Ave, E 11th Ave and S Bellaire St (E Lasalle Pl to End).

ROW Construction leads the purposes with 234 stretches, ahead of Fiber Optics at 155 and Street Cut - Utilities at 149. Boring and/or Wells shows the sharpest fall, to 31 from 90.

E 19th Ave and N Clayton St have 18 stretches each, and 40th St has 17. A count of stretches is not a length of time or a number of blocked lanes, so a street with 18 stretches is not necessarily slower than one with 13.

State highway work is not in the permit counts, but it affects the same trips. CDOT said the eastbound I-270 and US 36 bridge over I-25 in Adams County had a full closure from Friday, Oct. 23 at 10 p.m. through Monday, Oct. 26 at 6 a.m.

A second full closure is planned from Friday, Nov. 6 at 10 p.m. through Monday, Nov. 9 at 6 a.m.

On I-225, a $1.9 million project adds a northbound through lane between I-25 and S Yosemite St, running October to December 2026, per the CDOT project page. Daytime work runs 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.

The night hours differ between sources. The Denver Post gives 9:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m., Sunday through Thursday. CDOT gives 9:30 p.m. to 6 a.m., Sunday night through Thursday night.

Compare next week's stretch count with 1,172 to see whether the decline continues. Check the Nov. 6 CDOT closure before planning any Friday-night trip through the I-270 and US 36 area.

The Denver construction map shows work near a given route. Last week's edition, Utility and Construction Work, covered the prior week's permits.

The counts come from the City and County of Denver's street occupancy permits, pulled 2026-10-27. The period is October 27 to November 2, 2026; the week before is October 20 to October 26, 2026; the same week last year is October 28 to November 3, 2025. These are permits, not closures observed, and work can start late, end early or be cancelled. Emergency closures have no permit. Permits ending more than a year away are open-ended placeholders and are not counted, and state highway closures are not included. Counts measure permitted stretches, not people affected, and are not rates.

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