Would help but I'm not sure shutting down a major shipping route so people can go skiing is ever gonna fly. They could start by better enforcing chain laws, even upping the penalty.
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I-70 Madness - Colorado
- Thread starter 4aprice
- Start date
Would help but I'm not sure shutting down a major shipping route so people can go skiing is ever gonna fly. They could start by better enforcing chain laws, even upping the penalty.
dlague
Active member
More lanes will never happen. It is always turned down.
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Jcb890
Active member
This may be a dumb question, but why was it installed as a 2-lane road instead of a 3-lane highway? It sounds like expansion is needed, but obviously it would be quite tough with the mountains and hills the road travels along.
Pretty sure you answered your own questions
dlague
Active member
With all the rock cliffs along the highway it would require lot a of blasting and effectively would require that the highway be shut down.
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Smellytele
Well-known member
Most road ways at some point become too small. It is a build it and they will come and come again. It is a situation where they build a road and then more people travel it and more business are added then more people come and so on. Road planning is a double edge sword kind of thing.
BenedictGomez
Well-known member
Fair enough, but you've really described how to avoid a hostage situation, not a solution. Must be horrible for Saturday race league parents living in Denver.
dlague
Active member
Well then they have a choice - leave an hour or so earlier or join the crowd and sit in traffic. Which may still be less than an extra hour.
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4aprice
Well-known member
Its really not that bad if you are prepared. Getting to the Golden/Morrison area by 6 am from Denver really wasn't bad. The interchange at 6 and 470 had a line but not as bad as (and maybe BG knows this one) the I-287, I-80 interchange here in North Jersey on almost any morning. The initial climb up through Genese to the top of Floyd Hill was the worst, but I'm glad we got an early start. Should be no traffic now (still great skiing though). Do think its funny that its immortalized in song.
Alex
Lake Hopatcong, NJ
BenedictGomez
Well-known member
I would shoot myself if I had to do that every day rush hour morning/evening.
The only time I encounter this horror is when I leave Thursday or Friday for weekends in Vermont, and that's always the worst part of the trip......every trip. There's no escape. :angry:
abc
Well-known member
The I-70 situation is somewhat unique in that it's "only" 100 mile from Denver to the Summit county ski areas. So a lot of people, I mean A LOT of people day trip from Denver. Add to that, A LOT of other people who do the drive on Saturday morning and Sunday evening, you have the problem on Saturday morning and Sunday evening.
For those of you who had driven that road, I hope you remember what it was like. We're talking about going up and down some pretty impressive passes. The tunnel is just one of those. There's also the "minor" pass west of Denver which can also slow traffic to a crawl, or indeed shut it down from time to time when unsuspecting motorist (or truck drivers) lost control.
I've lived in California, where the roads to Tahoe are actually even worse than I-70. But, since it's beyond day trip distance for the majority of SF Bay area skiers, most people end up driving up and back on Friday night and Sunday night. Yes, the traffic can be equally terrible (and often WORSE). But the expectation is different. People do plan around the weather. Or they learn quickly once they got caught in it.
The landscape of the west is quite different. We're really talking about inhospitable land that got wrangled into recreation land. People tend to lose sight of that and wonder why it weren't done "better" in the first place, or "improved" sooner. We can only hope it will eventually get tackled the right way. But I admit I'm not holding my breath for any quick results any time soon.
For those of you who had driven that road, I hope you remember what it was like. We're talking about going up and down some pretty impressive passes. The tunnel is just one of those. There's also the "minor" pass west of Denver which can also slow traffic to a crawl, or indeed shut it down from time to time when unsuspecting motorist (or truck drivers) lost control.
I've lived in California, where the roads to Tahoe are actually even worse than I-70. But, since it's beyond day trip distance for the majority of SF Bay area skiers, most people end up driving up and back on Friday night and Sunday night. Yes, the traffic can be equally terrible (and often WORSE). But the expectation is different. People do plan around the weather. Or they learn quickly once they got caught in it.
The landscape of the west is quite different. We're really talking about inhospitable land that got wrangled into recreation land. People tend to lose sight of that and wonder why it weren't done "better" in the first place, or "improved" sooner. We can only hope it will eventually get tackled the right way. But I admit I'm not holding my breath for any quick results any time soon.
jimk
Well-known member
This^
There are ways the locals deal with it. There is a similar dirty secret about Alta/Bird. During periods when the powder is deepest the LCC access road can be badly backed up or entirely closed for several hours. It's a serious factor if it means you head up from SLC at 8AM and expect to be skiing by 9, but don't arrive until noon. Makes some locals forego their season passes and divert to buy day tickets for Solitude or Brighton.
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