As long-distance relationships go, mine with E-470 is a love-hate affair.
For the first I-don’t-know-how- many years the near half-circle skirting the eastern edge of the metro area was open, I did not acknowledge its existence. There was no link from Interstate 25 north of Denver, and the unfinished road didn’t really go where I needed to travel.
And then, once that last 8-mile stretch of highway opened, transforming my drive to Denver International Airport from a zigzag through downtown Brighton and the backroads of Commerce City to a 23-mile, 70-mph zoom, I came to resent the road and its tolling authority.
Who were they to import this wholly un-Western concept of a pay highway to interrupt our freedom of the open road?
E-470, just 6 miles from my house, beckoned, but I denied it, choosing instead to bitterly pick my way across the plains at small-town speeds every time someone needed a ride home from the airport.
It was as a passenger, in the early spring of 2003, that I took my first ride on the tollway. I protested, but my husband insisted. “I’ll pay,” he soothed.
My wallet clamped shut, I leaned back in the seat and just looked west. I saw the ribbon of blacktop winding through the grassy hills, dipping down to give me a peek into the gravel pits and zipping us up to crests where a breathtaking view of the Front Range unfolded. Almost as soon as that first journey began, it was all over for me.
I was in love with that road. Every trip revealed something new — a pair of bald eagles roosting in dead cottonwoods along the southern edge of the road, a heron wading in the gravel pits, sometimes a stellar view of building thunderheads.
I came to adore the cheery toll-booth operators, who always had a kind word, a bit of travel advice and, sometimes, reassurance.
One night, I trailed a brown van that seemed to be weaving all over the place into the toll plaza. I indignantly asked the attendant if she thought the driver might be drunk. “No,” she offered. “He comes through all the time, and he seemed fine.”
I felt oddly comforted by the idea that these folks, identified only by portable plastic nameplates toted from booth to booth, had a clearer view of the road and its travelers than I could ever have through the windshield.
A few years later, during the holiday blizzards of 2007, my grandmother was dying and people were coming from across the country to say their farewells. A plane carrying my South Carolina cousin and her middle son somehow managed to land in the worst of the snow. Being the closest to the airport and with a four-wheel-drive truck at the ready, I was sent to collect them.
No one wanted to come along.
Alone, with a candle in a coffee can and a down comforter in the cab, I set out through the drifts that had already begun to slow the going. Snow darkened the sky and muffled my sense of time and space. I was scared.
On the tollway, all I could do was point in what seemed like the right direction and press down on the pedal until I could see the pale beacon of the toll-plaza lights. Each time I pulled into a tollbooth, I exhaled a little when the window slid open and a hand poked out to collect my fare. “Stay safe,” they advised through the howl of sideways blowing snow. But what I heard was: “Don’t worry. You’re almost there.”
Very early last Sunday morning, the rogue neighborhood fireworks just over, I headed out to fetch my spouse from DIA. I was drowsy and counting on the familiarity of the tollway to carry me safely out and back.
What I found was a changed road.
Economics have made E-470 throw over its kindly toll collectors for a cold electronic eye that keeps tabs on the license plates that pass through and sends a bill later.
The friendly booths have gone dark, the nameplates have been removed for good, and sullen orange highway barrels clog the lanes that once led to an easy smile.
On that drive, I felt lost. Absent a last stop to hand over my $2.50 and say “Hi!”, I nearly missed the exit to the airport. My glowing mileposts were gone.
While I am certain E-470 is still the same highway, I am just as sure that the journey will never be the same.
Dana Coffield: 303-954-1954 or dcoffield@denverpost.com
Mike Littwin’s column will return Wednesday.
