Colorado Street closing Wednesday for roadway surfacing work in Laramie

Colorado Street will close between Riverside Drive and Venture Drive from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday, April 29, while crews complete roadway surfacing work. Detours will be in place, and the City of Laramie is urging drivers to avoid the corridor if they can, a move that will matter most for commuters, school-day trips, deliveries and nearby businesses that depend on steady access.

The closure is short, but it lands in a part of town where even a one-day interruption can reshape traffic. Drivers moving through the Venture Drive area will need to build in extra time, and anyone headed toward the west side of Laramie will be funneled around a section that normally helps link Riverside and Venture. Questions about the work can be directed to the city’s Engineering Division at 307-721-5250 or engineering@cityoflaramie.org.

The shutdown is part of a broader 2026 street rehabilitation effort the city has underway with Knife River. That project covers 9 lane-miles of mill and overlay work, along with curb and gutter repairs, ADA ramps and spot base repair, and city officials say the full package is expected to wrap up by the end of October 2026. The city has also said each roadway in the rehab program will be closed for no more than four weeks, a sign that officials are trying to keep disruption contained block by block rather than shut down larger stretches for long periods.

Colorado Street’s role in the west side’s traffic pattern gives this closure broader significance than a routine maintenance notice. City documents tied to WyoTech’s expansion at 1767 Venture Drive show that public infrastructure improvements, including Venture Drive and a planned 10-foot trail on the north side of Venture Drive, were required after the school added about 90,000 square feet to its building in 2021. Another city agenda item said planners were looking at Adams, Venture, Colorado and Riverside for traffic-flow improvements.

That attention reflects the pressures in West Laramie, a neighborhood with more than 3,000 residents that sits behind major barriers including Interstate 80, the Laramie River and the railroad. In that setting, a resurfacing closure is more than a temporary inconvenience. It is another reminder that the city’s roadwork, development plans and mobility fixes are being pushed through the same corridors at the same time.