Seldom does a winter go by without complaints about congestion on Interstate 70 in the mountains, along with proposals to improve the highway.
The most recent suggestion concerns the Twin Tunnels near Idaho Springs, something of a bottleneck. A panel of experts proposed widening the eastbound tunnel, adding an eastbound lane from Idaho Springs to Floyd Hill, and improving a 45 mph curve into a 55 mph curve.
That’s just a Band-Aid, of course. Even if this $55 million worth of work gets done, then a year or two after the ribbon-cutting, the highway will be as congested as ever. Absent something like $10-a-gallon gasoline, traffic will expand to meet road capacity.
That happens because highways can create their own demand. Back in the days of two-lane U.S. 6 across Loveland Pass, Dillon was a gas station and dogs napped for hours on Main Street in Breckenridge. Install four lanes and a tunnel under the Great Divide, and old mining claims that were going for back taxes turn into valuable resort property.
More skiers can get there more easily, so existing areas expand and new ones are built. That means more lodging and restaurants, which need supplies, which means truck traffic. The process should be clear: The bigger and better the highway, the more traffic it will get, and then congestion will make people want an even bigger and better road.
With that in mind, let’s ponder some long-term solutions to the montane stretch of Interstate 70:
Do nothing. For awhile, congestion will increase, but the prospect of seven or eight hours of stop-and-go in a blizzard will persuade many people to do something else on winter weekends. In time, the problem will solve itself. This approach is quite affordable, but it would hurt business along the corridor — and some of those businesses have lobbyists.
Private enterprise. About 35 years ago, Climax Molybdenum needed to expand its tailings ponds on the west side of Fremont Pass. Colorado 91 was in the way. Climax built a new highway. So if Vail Resorts needs a better road, let Vail Resorts build it. Republicans are always touting the virtues of “privatization,” although this effort might interfere with another party principle: public subsidies to big business.
Alternate routes. The Post recently ran a story about increased business at Monarch Mountain, just west of Salida. My friend and colleague Allen Best, who follows the ski industry closely, speculates that part of the increase might be explained by “I-70 fatigue” and an improved U.S. 285.
Improving other routes to other resort areas could reduce I-70 demand, and stimulate business in other parts of the state. But then the blight known in the state’s backwaters as “the I-70 Sacrifice Zone” would metastasize, and what we already have is more than enough.
Rails. Not the high-tech, high-speed fantasies that keep popping up, but using an existing slow/heavy rail corridor that is now out of service: the Tennessee Pass route. Rehabilitate the line, hire a freight rail operator, and ban big trucks on I-70. The resort freight could go by rail to Minturn, a few miles west of Vail.
This would effectively increase auto capacity by reducing truck traffic. My problem with it is that I often walk my car-chasing idiot dog along those idle tracks, and I sure don’t want him to have trains to chase.
But I suppose we all need to make sacrifices for the common good, and if it keeps the I-70 blight from spreading, I will find another place to walk the dog.
Freelance columnist Ed Quillen (ekquillen@gmail.com) of Salida is a regular contributor to The Denver Post.
