In 2004, the Colorado Department of Transportation dropped the idea that a pricey monorail was the solution for traffic along the Interstate 70 mountain corridor.
Incredibly, six years later, that pie-in-the-sky plan now reigns supreme again, and we’re still stuck in traffic.
We’re baffled that CDOT’s preferred solution continues to be a transit system that taxpayers cannot afford. A monorail is unlikely to attract significant ridership, and the new plan that embraces it nearly triples the cost of the more straightforward solution of widening the road.
In a study released last week, CDOT’s engineers found that expanding I-70 to three lanes on both its eastern and western approaches to the Eisenhower tunnels would cost roughly $7 billion. That’s a costly solution, to be sure, but it also would incorporate several improved interchanges and other fixes likely to ease congestion for decades.
But the study’s conclusion supports scrapping that solution in favor of a $20 billion mix of marginal highway improvements combined with an elevated “advanced guideway” transit line running 118 miles between C-470 and the Eagle County Regional Airport.
CDOT’s funding stream is far too weak to imagine a $20 billion solution. It might as well be $100 billion.
Colorado’s next governor and state lawmakers should work with residents of Clear Creek County and other affected mountain communities that have been fighting a highway expansion and get them on board with widening the road. It’s the most realistic and cost-effective solution.
If they insist on a monorail, which isn’t feasible, it’s merely a stall tactic to delay road widening.
If nothing is done to the highway, given population growth and future travel projections, significant slowdowns will occur in the corridor.
If the department is to build anything at all to improve the corridor, it will almost certainly have to convince voters and lawmakers to raise taxes. To gain that support, CDOT must have a solid plan and it would help to have the support of those communities.
Those who travel that storied high-mountain road know the problem all too well. Infamous bottlenecks occur at the base of Floyd Hill where traffic funnels into two lanes each way at the Twin Tunnels, and again near Georgetown at the Empire exit. The problem exists mostly on weekends, and particularly during ski season.
Unless action is taken to increase capacity, CDOT warns that by 2035 weekend travel will take three times longer than it does now. Weekday travel would double.
That lost time means billions to the state economy.
CDOT originally ruled out the monorail solution in 2004, but was forced to revisit the transit system when mountain communities and environmentalists balked.
We sympathize with Clear Creek residents who fear an expansion would degrade their communities.
CDOT should focus on building a highway that mitigates impacts and works with the area’s unique environment, much as it did with the famous Glenwood Canyon corridor. An engineering marvel, I-70’s passage through that scenic canyon is a prime example of the possibilities that could be achieved once residents drop the monorail concept.
CDOT’s engineers ought to be given the freedom to move forward with a realistic fix — and to do so without further delay.
