Opponents of a controversial project to widen Interstate 70 through northeast Denver made clear to state officials Thursday that they don’t plan to back down now that the $1.2 billion project has won federal approval.

Besides a potential new legal challenge that’s brewing, organizer Candi CdeBaca made several promises when opponents were given time to press their case to a packed room at Swansea Recreation Center, before the planned presentation by Colorado Department of Transportation officials.

“This is a state project,” she said, nodding to several state legislators present. “They are the only ones able to help us now. They need to know that if they don’t help us,” they will face opposition in the next election.

CdeBaca then said that whichever contracting team CDOT chose for a private partnership in coming months had “better be prepared to lose time, money and credibility” as protests persist.

CDOT and its High Performance Transportation Enterprise, which oversees the agency’s private partnership projects, convened the session as the first community meeting since the Jan. 19 issuance of a “Record of Decision” by the Federal Highway Administration. That marked the end of a federal environmental review that stretched more than a decade.

Officials had planned a briefing on the parameters of a public-private partnership and how the selection of a contractor from among four competing teams will play out. The partner will design, finance, rebuild and maintain the 10-mile stretch between Interstate 25 and Chambers Road as well as operate new managed toll lanes.

But most attendees were more focused on the wisdom of the project. CDOT officials quickly pivoted, turning the meeting into a question-and-answer session — one that ended up featuring lively exchanges, pleading by several attendees for CDOT to reconsider its plan and shouted rejoinders to assertions by CDOT director Shailen Bhatt.

“Do what’s moral, not just what’s legal!” one man shouted from the back of the Swansea gymnasium.

“Listen to the people!” a woman yelled.

Bhatt made clear early on that rerouting I-70’s traffic to interstates 270 and 76, long an alternative pressed by vocal opponents, wasn’t going to happen. Unless a court tells CDOT otherwise, he said, it will proceed with its plan, which calls for years of construction to start in early 2018.

Before CDOT I-70 mtg, organizer Candi CdeBaca says: "Remember that they are paid a lot of money to lie to us." Will be interesting mtg. pic.twitter.com/tBy1Aw3BDQ — Jon Murray (@JonMurray) February 17, 2017

The stuffy gym and the Q&A were dominated by critics of the project. Some wore face coverings or stickers with the opposition mantra “Ditch the Ditch.” Several speakers referred to news that the ZIP code they were in had just been named by one group as the most polluted populated area in the nation.

The meeting venue, Swansea Recreation Center, is just a few blocks north of a 2-mile stretch of I-70 where CDOT plans to tear down a 53-year-old viaduct. It will be replaced with a widened, below-grade highway that, in CDOT’s largest concession to the community, will be topped by a 4-acre parkland cover.

But the project requires the demolition of 56 homes and 17 businesses in Elyria-Swansea and surrounding areas.

Some project supporters were evident in the gym, if mostly silent.

“We’re excited. We want it to move forward,” said Emily Alexander-Thomson, during an interview in the hallway. She moved to Elyria in 2011 and lives about 500 feet from the I-70 viaduct with her husband, Graham.

“It’s going to provide a much greater benefit than a hassle,” Emily said, despite four or five years of construction, because the I-70 project is among several big city and state investments that she thinks will improve the long-neglected northeast neighborhoods. “If something isn’t done about the (aging viaduct), it’s going to be a much bigger problem.”

It's clear not everyone here wants halt to I-70 project. But overwhelmingly it's the opponents speaking up, asking Bhatt questions pic.twitter.com/9Td8zyo6a8 — Jon Murray (@JonMurray) February 17, 2017

The project has garnered strong support from other quarters, including from Mayor Michael Hancock.

In an interview with Denver Post TV this week, he asserted that vocal opponents had attracted more attention than many residents who quietly support the project, even if they are wary of the coming disruptions.

He recalled a community meeting soon after he took office in 2011, when the project had been under consideration for more than a decade. He said residents told him directly: “Mayor, we’ve been poked and prodded and studied so long, we just want this project to move forward.”

That sentiment has affected his approach to the divisive project, even if opposition has ramped up in recent years.

He argued that several project arrangements — including the parkland cap, new drainage projects and street connections across the highway — would address some of the problems experienced by the neighborhoods. He sees them as “victims of environmental discrimination back in the 1950s and ’60s.”

But some community advocates argued Thursday that the drastic widening of the freeway’s footprint through Elyria-Swansea would negate any gains.

And opponents such as developer Kyle Zeppelin questioned CDOT officials’ portrayal of the opposition as 60 to 70 vocal people in a social media posting. He said the project would affect many more than that, and not positively.

Earlier Thursday, CDOT posted a new video promoting the Central 70 project on its Facebook page. It takes particular aim at the reroute proposal for I-70 in the north metro area, which would result in the conversion of I-70 into a surface boulevard.

The video says there would be big logistical and financial challenges, and Bhatt echoed that tonight. A message accompanying the video estimates the cost to tear down I-70 and build 12 lanes and new interchanges on the other route at $3 billion.

The video pans the reroute idea in part by pointing out that I-70 is home to the region’s largest freight industry, making a replacement boulevard inadequate for the corridor’s demands. “Essentially, this would be Colorado Boulevard on steroids,” the narrator says.

But opponents questioned CDOT’s figures and assertions about the alternative, saying repeatedly Thursday night that the reroute option — long rejected by CDOT — deserved another look.