After leaving Morrison, it then heads east passing by Littleton and through Highlands Ranch before interchanging Interstate 25 in Lone Tree, where the freeway continues as a tollway and where the state highway designation ends.

Alternatives to provide faster and easier access to and from Denver for the southwestern suburbs were discussed after plans for a full beltway ceased.

SH 470 begins in Golden as an extension of Johnson Road at an intersection with US 6 (6th Avenue) near the Jefferson County government office complex and its adjacent light rail station.

SH 470 travels south from the intersection on a four-lane freeway and passes over US 40 before reaching an interchange with I-70 near Tin Cup Hogback Park.

[2] From Morrison, SH 470 begins a gradual turn to the southeast as it passes between Mount Glennon and Bear Creek Lake Park.

SH 470 gains a parallel multi-use trail for pedestrians and bicycles that follows the freeway as it enters Highlands Ranch in Douglas County.

SH 470 dips to the south to follow Willow Creek around the Park Meadows shopping mall in Lone Tree, terminating at a stack interchange with I-25.

[2] In the 1960s the Colorado Department of Transportation perceived a need for a beltway around the Denver Metro Area and sent a proposal to the Federal Highway Administration.

CDOT did not wish to participate in the building of the freeway extension and left the counties and cities of the metro area to provide funding for the project.

The city and county of Broomfield constructed an 11-mile (18 km) continuation of the E-470 tollway from I-25 to an interchange with US 36 (the Denver-Boulder Turnpike) near Flatiron Crossing Mall.

In August 2003, CDOT made a compromise with the cities of Westminster, Arvada and Golden to do an environmental impact study, the first step in an attempt to complete the beltway by 2020.

[7] After 12 years of being in the Jefferson Parkway Public Highway Authority, Broomfield opted out after citing an elevated reading of plutonium in the proposed path of the tollway, where the former nuclear weapons manufacturing plant was along the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge.

[8] Opposition also grew in Arvada as concerns for excavating decades-old plutonium as well as noise impacts, air and light quality, and debris flying into people's yards from high speed traffic.

[9] When funding becomes available, CDOT plans to reconstruct the freeway-to-freeway interchange between C-470 and US 285, while also making improvements to the freeway between US 285 and SH 8 (Morrison Road).