Rumors that Colorado Springs is considering a westward extension of Constitution Avenue appear to be greatly exaggerated.

A column published in Sunday’s edition of The Gazette by Bob Loevy, a former political science professor and resident of the Old North End neighborhood, said that a “city agency” revived the controversial idea of building Constitution out toward Interstate 25. City officials rejected the suggestion in the following days.

“No agency is proposing such a change,” city communications director Jason Strickland said.

Loevy’s column was based on an illustration in the Fountain Creek Watershed Vision & Implementation Plan, also known as the COS Creek Plan. The plan being developed for the city by the nonprofit Pikes Peak Waterways is a high-level overview of potential changes meant to enhance and activate Fountain and Monument creeks as they flow through Colorado Springs.

The design for Monument Valley Park and the Centennial neighborhood shows that the section crossed by the Popcycle Bridge is labeled “Expanded Bridge (Future).” A potential road across that bridge connects via roundabout to Fontanero Street on the west side of the park.

No details were given about how the bridge would change. Constitution Avenue is not mentioned in the design or named on any page of the COS Creek Plan.

However, previous proposals from city departments had included extending Constitution Avenue along that path and connecting it to Fontanero. The City Council voted in February 2023 to pull a study on extending Constitution Avenue out of the city’s Connect COS transportation plan. At the time, the council explicitly stated that the city should consider making the rail line a dedicated greenway and path.

Organizers in the Old North End asked Pikes Peak Waterways and the city to change that detail of the plan back in 2024 to avoid confusion. The fact that it remained in the updated version released in July raised worries that officials would seriously pursue it.

“This plan is really focused on the waterways. We’re not talking about roads. Nowhere in the plan do we talk about road changes,” said Jan Martin, president of Pikes Peak Waterways and a former member of the Colorado Springs City Council.

Martin and Strickland said Loevy had not reached out to either city staff or Pikes Peak Waterways before running his column. Loevy said he stood by the column and that the Old North End needed to watch out for any signs of the extension being pursued again.

At a board meeting Wednesday night, the Historic Neighborhoods Partnership drafted a letter to Pikes Peak Waterways requesting the removal of that section of the design.

“We asked if they could still remove it, especially since the city went through such great lengths and made decisions to not have (Constitution) be part of ConnectCOS,” Partnership chair Dianne Bridges said. “This is not in sync with those assumptions.”

Bridges said the Constitution proposal remained a sensitive issue because the extension would pass through a dozen neighborhoods along the former Rock Island railroad tracks. Bridges said that while the plan may not be binding, it should only show changes that the city wanted to implement.

Martin said organizers would change the illustration to ease those concerns.

Because the plan is being developed by the nonprofit, the proposal is not binding to the city in the same way as ConnectCOS. Martin said organizers would not send the plan to the City Council for a vote until there were specific projects that were ready to break ground.