Despite years of vocal protest, the Colorado Department of Transportation has stuck to its guns on the $1.2 billion plan to widen Interstate 70 through northeast Denver and replace an aging viaduct with a below-grade freeway. But opponents haven’t given up. First came an environmental lawsuit filed in March by the Sierra Club and community groups to challenge the project.

Last week, Denver City Councilman Rafael Espinoza found an unorthodox way to launch another appeal of the expansion plan and its feared impact on the Elyria-Swansea and Globeville neighborhoods.

With backing from a few state lawmakers and community groups, Espinoza on June 3 submitted an application to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Every Place Counts Design Challenge program. As the Federal Highway Administration considers final approval of CDOT’s plans, Espinoza has applied for support in examining opponents’ chief alternative — the rerouting of I-70 traffic through northeast Denver to Interstates 76 and 270, plus the replacement of that portion of I-70 with a surface parkway or boulevard.

The federal department will select four finalists from each of four U.S. regions, including the West, for a two-day design session in July. The DOT will provide finalists with assistance from federal officials and experts in identifying solutions to problems caused by highways.

At first glance, the design challenge would seem perfect for an intense look at I-70. Its stated mission is to look at past highway projects that have split neighborhoods and severed community connections, exploring projects to mend them.

As Espinoza’s application points out, when I-70 was built through northeast Denver five decades ago, “More than 500 homes and 100 businesses were removed, five parishes were destroyed and 56 dead-ends were created where former roads had been a functioning network for cars, buses, bikers and walkers in support of these neighborhoods.”

But unlike a typical application for a program such as the design challenge, Espinoza’s application lacked support from Mayor Michael Hancock and CDOT, though it did include supportive letters from state Sen. Dan Pabon and state Reps. Crisanta Duran and Angela Williams. (You can read the application here.)

In a presentation on the program, federal officials indicated in May that applicants should be mayors, county executives or tribal heads in order to be eligible. That presentation also suggests (on slide 6) that projects to solve a problem that’s already the focus of the federal environmental impact review process (as CDOT’s I-70 plan currently is) would not be eligible for the design challenge.

Espinoza acknowledged the insurgent nature of his design challenge application when he wrote at the end:

In closing, I imagine this application is very different from others you receive. My guess is most will be written by professionals working, or contracting with, government agencies in the hopes of getting their programs recognized by USDOT. This application came as a request from the community. … Sometimes it takes going beyond the local power brokers to find an advocate to put pressure to do the right thing.

The application says CDOT’s plan “perpetuates the injustice” of I-70’s original construction “by tripling the width of I-70, keeping the communities divided. At least 80 more dwelling units and many businesses will be lost with this project.” It also references concerns that Denver’s proposed Platte to Park Hill drainage project, which would improve drainage near the I-70 project zone, is diverting city resources away from solving other drainage challenges.

Here’s an animation produced for Unite North Metro Denver that shows how a boulevard replacement for I-70 might work:

CDOT has countered in the past that the project would go a long way to restoring community connections by removing the visual barrier of the viaduct. And it would top part of the lowered highway with a 4-acre parkland cover near Swansea Elementary:

But opponents reject the highway cover as window dressing. Overall, they say, the highway expansion will harm the community in terms of its intrusion into neighborhoods and environmental impact.

On a visit to Denver recently, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx was greeted by protests of the I-70 project. He told another Denver Post reporter that officials would weigh all sides before issuing an expected Record of Decision document this summer. “The community speaks through its officials, and we will continue to listen to all the stakeholders in this,” Foxx said.

In coming weeks, federal transportation officials will announce the project finalists for the design challenge. Though CDOT’s plan is nearing the finish line, Espinoza and other opponents who worked with him on the plan aren’t giving up on finding support for the reroute alternative.

“I hope the sessions will allow us to provide even greater levels of clarity to the community-proposed solution as well as open the eyes and ears of those backing the I-70 trench project to those who have been proposing a better solution for Denver families, our community and Denver’s future,” Espinoza said in an e-mail this week.