Evelyn Schlatter

I’ve been following the I-70 mountain corridor. Not in any literal sense. I quit driving that thing around 2002 because it scared the living bejesus out of me. Yeah, I’ve used it to access Colorado’s fabulous public lands. And back in the day, to go hang out in groovy places like Idaho Springs for a nice quick getaway. But if you try to, say, leave Denver on a Friday after work…well, those of you who have braved that know whereof I speak. Brings to mind the lyrics from that Police song: “packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes.” So I pretty much quit driving the corridor and instead, found other routes to the back country, varying my days. I do still follow the corridor, but in a more metaphysical, detached way. I’ve become an armchair observer of the discussion, debates, frustration, and freak-outs over what to do, how to do it, where to do it, and how much it’s all going to cost to decrease traffic jams on the corridor, increase safety, and make sure that everybody’s historic and environmental preservation needs are met.

Last summer was the busiest in terms of vehicles on the road in the 34-year history of the Eisenhower Tunnel. 2007 was pretty busy overall on the corridor. So busy it even made the New York Times. According to the Colorado Department of Transportation, a million cars log-jammed onto the corridor in March 2007. Thirty thousand cars daily use it, filled with commuters, tourists, outdoor recreation fans, and second-home owners. And probably their dogs, kids, skis, bikes, kayaks, newspapers, ebook readers, laptops, and PlayStations, as they all need something to do while they’re sitting in traffic for five hours on their way to or from the mountains.

To find out more about what’s up with the corridor, you can check out the series on “Project I-70″ that ran on CBS4 Denver. You’ll learn interesting things like this: nearly half of the traffic on the corridor is from Denver. Another 18 percent is from mountain corridor communities and 21 percent is from out of state. And things like this: Key traffic backup areas are the westbound lanes of Floyd Hill, the eastbound lanes approaching the Eisenhower Tunnel, and the U.S. 40 interchange. All things that people who drive it pretty much know viscerally. Then I read the report that the Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce and Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation released in April 2007. I also had a look at CDOT’s Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement and came away from all of that thinking in acronyms like FUBAR and SNAFU. But also a greater appreciation for what the corridor does for the state economically, since

Interstate 70 is the only east-west interstate crossing Colorado and is the only continuous east-west highway in the study area. The Corridor serves as the lifeblood of east-west travel in Colorado, providing for the movement of people, goods, and services across the state. It is a major corridor for access to many of Colorado’s recreation and tourism destinations. In addition, it is a link in the national interstate highway system, the principal purposes of which are to connect major metropolitan areas and industrial centers by direct routes, and to provide a dependable highway network to serve in national emergencies. [source: CDOT Draft PEIS]

Yeah. Got it. Coloradans have known about these issues for years. And all kinds of ideas are bouncing around. The usual suspects are: adding lanes and/or building a monorail. Other proposals include “congestion pricing,” which is a nice way of saying: “yo, chumps. Pay a toll.” More specifically, if you want to drive the corridor at peak times, pay up. The idea is to encourage you to drive at non-peak times, thus alleviating blockage. Not uncommon. But not really popular here (check out the comments at the end of that piece).

Everybody who drives the corridor knows it can be gnarly-heinous, no matter the season. And if you don’t drive it, you hear about how gnarly-heinous it is from those who do, and from the media who bring it up. Okay, so we all know it’s a pain in the asphalt. Which is why CDOT and a whole slew of “stakeholders” in whatever happens along that corridor have come together like peanut butter and chocolate to embark on the next frontier: Project I-70. Gentle readers, I bring you…

the I-70 Mountain Corridor-wide Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS) Process. Here’s the project overview. This collaboration is hard at work trying to come up with viable, workable, affordable, wildlife-lovin’, recreation-friendly, local community-protective, and historic district-safe solutions to alleviate traffic along the corridor AND encourage use (that tourism/recreation money thing) all while being good stewards of ecosystems and history. Currently, the team is developing a guideline manual and a(n) historic context manual. At least according to the official CSS process/timeline. From that timeline, by May 2009, CSS is supposed to have specific design guidelines in place for segments of I-70 in Summit, Eagle, and Clear Creek Counties. And then, of course, begins the haggling over the guidelines. And the haggling over the price. And the haggling with local communities over how to best implement guidelines.

And meanwhile, by 2025 (which might be about when the haggling ends), 72,000 vehicles are projected to travel through the Eisenhower tunnel every day.

Hold on a sec–let me grab my bag o’ chips and head back to the armchair.