Continued Study of Interstate 70

Maybe we should call it "continous" study! It never seems to end.

With another ski season getting underway over the busy Thanksgiving holiday, travelers along the I-70 corridor are preparing for the inevitable congestion that can make the trip to and from the mountain resorts slow and dangerous. There's no immediate solution in sight.

The burgeoning Front Range population means a steady growth in the number of I-70 trips, and plans by the Colorado Department of Transportation to significantly improve the highway are years away from being implemented. In fact, release of the final version of a long-awaited I-70 study has been pushed back until early next year. And once the plan is unveiled, it may be several years until construction actually begins.

But some short-term relief could come from a transportation demand management (TDM) plan forwarded by the I-70 Mountain Corridor Coalition, representing communities and businesses from all along the transportation corridor between Golden and Glenwood Springs.

The TDM plan includes a number of incentive-based measures intended to address peak-time congestion in the corridor. Some of the ideas floated in a draft version of the plan include free close-in parking at ski areas for carpoolers, as well as coupons for discounted goods and services for visitors willing to adjust their travel times to outside peak hours.

Additionally, the plan calls for installation of a high-tech traffic monitoring and notification system, which was implemented in a pilot phase this summer, visible to travelers in the form of new signs along the highway that detail travel times between key points.I t's not clear to what degree such measures will actually alleviate the crushing peak loads on the highway. The potential benefits haven't been quantified, coalition director Flo Raitano said. But similar measures have been tried - with mixed success - in other areas, notably in some of the long-distance travel corridors along the Eastern seaboard.