BROOMFIELD, Colo — How much have you heard about Northwest Parkway? Probably not much. It is the nine-mile tollway through Broomfield that connects I-25 and Highway 36.
Rarely do I ever talk about it during my TV traffic updates. One, because not much happens on it and two, the previous management had been radio silent basically since it opened 20 years ago. Now, there is a new operator of the Parkway and they want you to know they are here.
“Not many opportunities like this come up often,” said Mathieu Lisbonis, chief executive officer of Northwest Parkway when I asked him why VINCI Highways wanted to purchase and take over this contract to manage NW Parkway. "Our main job is to operate any toll road with high level standards but we’re also focused on being a good partner in the communities where we operate.”
Northwest Parkway opened in November 2003. I remember when it happened and there was some news about it, but not a ton. It started as the Northwest Parkway Public Highway Authority, a public body, but its operation was quickly privatized in 2007 with a 99-year lease to a consortium led by Portugal's Brisa Auto. Ten years later, in 2017, Brisa sold 100% of its interests to a group called NWP HoldCo for $744 million. Fast forward to 2024 where VINCI Highways completed the latest acquisition of the parkway for approximately $1.2 billion.
“We’ve been operating in the U.S. for about 30 years in toll concessions and in the construction business. The U.S. market is very interesting and we are looking at increasing our footprint. This area of Denver is booming and performing really well from an economic standpoint so we were very interested in this toll road," Lisbonis said.
Lisbonis told me during my Driving You Crazy Podcast that closing the 470 loop around the west side of metro Denver would improve mobility and provide drivers with new options to bypass congestion. The Parkway staff tells me they are working on not only an extension of the Parkway where the Interlocken loop is now, but would like to see the eventual completion of the proposed Jefferson Parkway project that would extend the tollway southwest to Highway 93 north of Golden.
“It’s a long story and is still in the hands of the lawmakers and elected officials, so I don’t have the answer on whether it will happen or not sometime soon but yes, we are obviously looking at it," Lisbonis said.
Lisbonis tells me they did study the Jefferson Parkway plans and talk to officials before agreeing to purchase the management of Northwest Parkway. He says it makes logical sense to create an alternative route, especially for west side commuters to get to Denver International Airport, but the ultimate decision on expansion is in the hands of the local lawmakers.
“At VINCI, we are quite optimistic," Lisbonis said. "We believe in projects and this is a nice project. I think the roadblocks are not that big and they do require attention and energy to address all of these challenges and controversy it brings, but I think it's not something undoable.”
He tells me there are still some major roadblocks they are trying to navigate through before anything moves forward with Jefferson Parkway. In the meantime, he says they are more focused on building a relationship with the community they serve and operations of the Parkway than pushing for an expansion of the current toll road.
One of the challenges the Parkway continues to see is increasing numbers of vehicles driving with no plates or invalid plates. Lisbonis tells me the number of violators has more than doubled since 2019, resulting in about $500,000 of stolen tolls.
“This problem is not unique to Northwest Parkway. We do not receive any public funding. We rely totally on toll revenue to operate the road so we believe in fairness and when tolls are not captured, the cost of operations and improvements shifts to drivers who do pay every time," Lisbonis said.
The Parkway says they installed an advanced surveillance system that includes 12 AI-powered cameras as well as partnering with Broomfield police to hire officers to perform patrolling targeting vehicles driving without plates or with obstructed plates.
There is much more happening on the Parkway and I go into all of it with Mathieu Lisbonis on my Driving You Crazy podcast available right now on any podcast app or from these links:
iTunes: https://apple.co/2fgLX8u
YouTube: https://rb.gy/d3dsek
Podbean: https://bit.ly/2JbBiec
iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2LVBvoc
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/30gj3zq
Pandora: https://rb.gy/9407eg
