Highway 50 signs in Pueblo, Colorado to honor Martin Luther King Jr. Where to see them.
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Pueblo City Council unanimously approved Monday to fund new signs for the renaming of a segment of Highway 50 in honor of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.
The approval allows the city to install six street name signs for the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Bypass, which is known as the U.S. Highway 50 Bypass from Interstate 25 to the Colorado Highway 96 and 47 interchange in Pueblo. It will transfer $40,000 from its general fund to pay for the project.
The signs will be installed by the city along the U.S. Highway 50 Bypass at the Hudson Avenue and Bonforte Boulevard intersection and Norwood Avenue and Troy Avenue intersections. Two other supplemental signs designating the highway as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Bypass will also be placed between I-25 and the interchange on Highway 50.
Eastbound travelers will see one of the supplemental signs just past Bonforte Boulevard, said Andrew Hayes, the city’s director of public works. The other supplemental sign will be located past the Colorado Highway 96 and 47 interchange and better viewed by westbound travelers, he said.
“I can assure you that the people of color in the Pueblo community eagerly await that day when the signage is installed,” said Ron Wiley, a Pueblo NAACP executive committee member.
Signage on I-25 will also be installed to reflect the name change. The Colorado Department of Transportation, as part of its New Pueblo Freeway initiative, will replace existing signs at the I-25 and Highway 50 interchange with new ones that will read as “MLK Bypass,” Hayes said.
That CDOT project is expected to start this summer. The city plans to install its new signs within the next three months, said Chuck Roy, the city's deputy director of public works. Traffic impacts to each of the areas where the signs will be placed are expected to last an hour or two at most, he said.
The signage project is the latest step from a year-long effort by the Pueblo NAACP to name a major Pueblo roadway in honor of King. The organization, on behalf of people of color in the city, first proposed the name change to the city last year.
The coalition at first preferred renaming Pueblo Boulevard in King’s honor but later agreed with the city to rename the U.S. Highway 50 Bypass. A city study determined that a name change there would be much less intrusive to businesses in that area compared to Pueblo Boulevard.
However, the switch won’t require properties along the U.S. 50 Bypass to change their addresses, said Scott Hobson, the city’s director of planning and community development.
The city council unanimously approved the name change in January.
More: What I-25 motorists in Pueblo, Colorado need to know before roadwork starts this Monday
Wiley told the Chieftain last year that the Pueblo NAACP agreed with the city’s recommendation to rename the U.S. 50 Highway Bypass because it’s a “prominent” roadway that generates considerable traffic and intersects with I-25. It runs between the East Side and Belmont.
The city estimates that more than 10,000 vehicle trips are made on the roadway each day. It's often used by people who are traveling to Pueblo Memorial Airport.
Chieftain reporter Josué Perez can be reached at JHPerez@gannett.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @josuepwrites. Support local news, subscribe to The Pueblo Chieftain at subscribe.chieftain.com.
This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: MLK to be honored in new Highway 50 signs in Pueblo, Colorado
