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Traffic on the alternative alignment, courtesy CDOT

I-70 was reopened a bit after 3 pm Thursday afternoon after being closed for more than 3 days by a major rockslide. Travelers began traversing the 1.5 mile temporary alignment just east of Glenwood Springs which runs one lane in each direction over the eastbound lanes. Travelers are restricted to 40 MPH and loads wider than 14 feet are prohibited over the alternative alignment, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation.

Good luck folks. Take it easy.

Photo courtesy of Colorado Department of Transportation

Thursday Morning Update: CDOT reports that they are preparing the road for opening, clearing snow and new debris from Wednesday’s blasting.  “Crews have already set up traffic control cones/barrels and signage on the Interstate so that when repairs are complete, the highway can open quickly. We will send notice as soon as a re-open time is set today.”

Late Evening Update: Just in time for the 9 o’clock news, the Colorado Department of Transportation declares, “The good news is that one lane of eastbound and westbound I-70 will reopen by the end of the day tomorrow.” Apparently, their geologists did have time to inspect the rock mitigation work done late in the day and they are “very satisfied with the work.” CDOT now believes that no further mitigation work will be required Thursday. In the morning crews will finish cleanup, drainage work and final pavement repair.

Be patient people, that’s one lane in each direction and three days of delayed travel along a busy section of highway. Travelers will be able to get through but it isn’t going to be full speed ahead. Plan for the potential of long queues and slow travel for the two lane detour.

Original Post: I 70 remains closed to traffic Wednesday night. The Colorado Department of Transportation says that two lanes of the highway are almost ready to carry traffic but they can’t vouch for the slope above. Work continues in the morning. The department assures the public, “CDOT will make every effort to reopen tomorrow.”

CDOT crews worked throughout the day to prepare a large area of loose rock for blasting and scaling. Apparently, the blast went off according to plan around 6 pm, but night came in before crews could climb back into the area and inspect the evening’s work. In the morning the scaling crew will climb back up the 900 foot slope to verify whether the slope is stable or, in the alternative, to begin work again. The highway will remain closed until the slope inspection is positive.

When the road is opened, the lanes farthest from the mountain which suffered the least damage will carry one lane of traffic in each direction. CDOT’s text messages and press communications have a slightly harried sound to them late this afternoon. The agency is acutely aware that the road usually carries 20,000 vehicles a day and that vacationers, truckers and commuters have only round-about & mountainous alternatives to the direct and convenient interstate arrow through the heart of the Colorado Rockies. They promise, “Be assured we will send an update as soon as we begin any procedures to open a lane.”

Stay tuned, folks.

Photo courtesy of Colorado Department of Transportation

Update at 4:10 pm: CDOT worked through the morning and most of the afternoon preparing a large area of loose rock for blasting and scaling. The agency says that the blasting is scheduled to be done by 5 pm. After the rock is cleared, they will assess any further damage to the road and then announce a timeline for opening the eastbound lanes of the highway to two way traffic. Stay tuned.

Original Post: I-70 remained closed Tuesday between Glenwood Springs and Dotsero while CDOT crews cleaned debris from the roadway and another group worked to dislodge loose rock on a steep slope almost 1000 feet above the highway. Around 8 pm Tuesday, CDOT sent out word that they have suspended the rockfall mitigation for the night. And, to the disappointment of many, there is “still no ETA for I-70 (to) reopen.” We’ll take the liberty of restating this rather terse statement as follows, “We don’t know when we can open the road; this is a real mess.”

According to CDOT late Tuesday night, the plan is to complete the rock mitigation and then repair the eastbound lanes so that traffic can be routed one lane in each direction along the less damaged part of the highway. CDOT isn’t saying yet, but based on past experience and the extent of the damage to the westbound lanes, it could be a matter of months before the highway is returned to full 4 lane travel.

How do You Get from A to B?

Meanwhile, the search for the best alternative route goes on for the 20,000 travelers who cross this section of highway every day. We want to say a word of caution to those of you who are considering taking an alternate route from the Front Range to Grand Junction or vice versa. A careful look at the National Weather Service forecasts and the current weather radar are just as essential to picking the right route as is a good map.

All the alternative roads are primarily two lane mountain highways. They go over very steep terrain and can be challenging driving for even the most experienced motorists. There will be heavy traffic from the many motorists and truckers who are inconvenienced by the Glenwood Canyon closure.

Finally, it is winter! A sunny afternoon can turn into a vicious evening squall in a matter of minutes. Check your tires; take some blankets and food; know where you are going.

The Northern Alternatives

For those who are making the trip from the Front Range to Grand Junction there are two possible northern routes which add around 3 hours – plus or minus – to the trip.  The two alternative routes combine CO13 from Rifle to Craig on the west junction with I-70, US40 from Craig to Kremmling and, either, CO9 to Silverthorne or US40 to Empire Junction at the east end of the detour.

Locals and other experts will debate which of the two routes is best, but there is no clear cut answer. Weather and the time and day of the trip will play a huge role in determining how long it takes along the two alternate routes. If it is snowing on the Continental Divide or travelers are on the highway during the weekend peak ski traffic, then taking US40 to or from Empire Junction will avoid the sometimes long delays up to and down from the Eisenhower Tunnel. If the roads are clear and I-70 is not at capacity, then the route through Silverthorne avoids Berthoud Pass and puts more miles on the Interstate at cruising speed.

The Southern Alternatives

The southern detour offers even more possibilities depending on where the traveler is headed. Once again there is a single end point at western end of the trip – whether that is the beginning or end of the trip. US50 runs from Grand Junction over Monarch Pass to Poncha Springs (near Salida) where the traveler has a variety of choices to make. From Poncha Springs, travelers can rejoin I-70 at Vail by following US285 north to US24  through Leadville, or at Frisco by following US285 to CO9. Or, they can go directly into Denver on US285 through South Park, to Colorado Springs by linking US285 to US24 east or Pueblo by continuing on US50.

The southern route from Denver to Grand Junction is a bit shorter than the the northern route, but that only tells a part of the story. In the past month, these roads have seen heavy snows and frequent road closures. Monarch Pass has been closed off and on because of weather, avalanche danger and multiple car accidents during the past two days following the rock fall in Glenwood Canyon. If it is snowing on the southern routes, the distance of the trip is the least important factor in choosing your way.

I-70 is a Local Road

Finally, I-70 serves as Main Street for the the scores of mountain communities along its way. For the many people who use the highway to commute from points west of Glenwood Springs to work in the businesses around Beaver Creek, Vail and Copper Mountain or who travel from points east to work in the Roaring Fork Valley, their regular hour long commutes have suddenly become epic journeys. There just aren’t any easy back road workarounds. Our sympathies go out to the working stiffs, as well as to the cross country voyagers.

Guess the Mess returns this Sunday! Test your knowledge of the driving conditions on I-70 and calculate the effects of weather on the trip home to Denver from a day in the mountains. Guess the time and extent of the greatest delay during eastbound rush hour on Sunday, March 14th.

The guess closest to the time of peak delay will win a pair of lift tickets to Copper Mountain. Four runner up prizes include 2 passes to the Vail Parking Garage, and 2 pair of Teko ski socks.

It is as easy as making a guess and sending a text message or an email. You can enter from your phone or your computer. Here is the short version of how to play Guess the Mess. And for those of you interested in all the details, they are here. (DON’T try to enter by leaving us a comment below this post. If you do that we don’t have anyway to get a hold of you.)

Hint: We’ve been playing Guess the Mess for several weeks now and it is clear that the winning players have read our earlier blog posts on How to Win Guess the Mess.  Good luck!

Update: Geologists who inspected the canyon wall above the rockfall have determined that mitigation is needed before I-70 can be opened. The extent of the work required and the schedule will be determined Tuesday morning. Meanwhile CDOT crews working below the unstable rock managed to break up about half of the 20 boulders that litter the roadway. This is likely to take some time.

Original Post: Around midnight, the mountain came tumbling down and landed smack on the highway along one of the steepest stretches of I-70 in Glenwood Canyon. The highway is closed in both directions as the CDOT engineers clear the boulders from the roadway and assess the damage to the highway. According to CDOT, “I-70 is not expected to open anytime soon.”

That’s not a very specific timeline but take a look at the pictures from the scene. The boulders punched at least one hole in the roadway, smashed guard rails and median barriers in a area where the elevated highway is tight against the canyon walls. It will take some time to move the rock and fix the multiple  sections of damaged roadway. In 2004, a similar rock slide kept the road completely closed for more than 24 hours; repairs took several months. In that slide, only the east side of the highway was damaged. Last night, both sides took a hit.

CDOT estimates that the largest of the 20 boulders is “66 tons.” So we will all wait a while until they can figure out what’s under it and what it takes to patch multiple “holes and dips” in the roadway. The westbound lane being the closest to the mountain took the hardest hit with one hole measuring 20 by 10 feet. The eastbound lane has a hole measuring 6 by 6 feet. Both lanes have multiple “dips” and areas that have rock embedded in the road.

Meanwhile, up above the road there is still a mountain of rock which needs to be inspected before anyone goes sailing down the highway. CDOT is sending several geologists up to take a look but it is a 2 hour hike up the cliff side to the area that broke away.

So if you are headed to Utah for an early spring break or coming home to Denver from Grand Junction you should plan on taking some extra time for your trip. The recommended detour headed west is to take US40 from Empire Junction to Steamboat and on to Craig, then SH13 through Meeker to rejoin I-70 at Rifle. (Or, going east, north on SH13 at Rifle to US40 at Craig then to Empire Junction and I-70.) According to Google search, this adds 105 miles and more than 3 hours to the trip. It is a beautiful ride but these are two lane mountain highways that go slowly through a series of small towns and have many tight turns and steep hills without passing lanes. Count on taking your time or book a seat on a train or plane.

For a while on Monday CDOT was telling people they could head south along US50, 160 and 285, especially if they were headed to a southern destination. Then they closed Monarch Pass on US50 due to heavy weather and multiple accidents. This is a good route if the weather is good and it is a bit shorter. But, it was snowing down south Monday; it is clear in the north. A traveler would be well advised to check the weather anytime before they set out across this southern route. Sometimes it is just better to wait it out, folks.

Update: What a wild night on Sunday. The usual Sunday afternoon rush hour came and went with the peak of the rush hour calculated at 5:16 with a 41 minute delay. We will be contacting the winners and will post the results as soon as they get back to us. Thanks for playing.

Guess the Mess is back! Test your knowledge of the driving conditions on I-70 and calculate the effects of weather on the trip home to Denver from a day in the mountains. Guess the time and extent of the greatest delay during eastbound rush hour on Sunday, March 7th.

The best guess will win a pair of lift tickets to Arapahoe Basin. Runner up prizes include 2 passes to the Vail Parking Garage, 2 pair of Teko ski socks and 2 GoI70 stainless steel water bottles – all useful prizes, not just schwag.

It is as easy as making a guess and sending a text message or an email. You can enter from your phone or your computer. Here is the short version of how to play Guess the Mess. And for those of you interested in all the details, they are here. (DON’T try to enter by leaving us a comment below this post. If you do that we don’t have anyway to get a hold of you.)

Hint: We’ve been playing Guess the Mess for several weeks now and it is clear that the winning players have read our earlier blog posts on How to Win Guess the Mess. Results of the first contest and winning times for last week’s contest are here. Good luck!

We asked Bob Wilson, the Public Relations Manager for the Colorado Department of Transportation, what most seemed to be on people’s mind this season. Without missing a beat he replied, “People want to know why we meter the Eisenhower Tunnel.”  GoI70 and COTRIP – CDOT’s excellent web site – will let you know when there is metering. Here is Bob Wilson’s explanation and some advice on what to do when CDOT is metering the tunnel. Read it and head it.

If you’ve driven Interstate 70 over the last few weekends, you’ve probably noticed there’s been an uptick in traffic along the corridor.  This isn’t surprising since the ski season is kicking into high gear.  However, the heavier traffic, especially eastbound on Sunday afternoons, has required the Colorado Department of Transportation to occasionally stop eastbound traffic at the Eisenhower Tunnel. These stops have been occurring for nearly 20 years but recently, we’ve been getting more questions than usual on why we’re doing it.  Good question with a simple answer that’s not always apparent: we do it for safety.

When we stop vehicles from entering the tunnel, it’s known as metering.  It usually occurs on eastbound I-70, right before you enter the west portal of the tunnel.  We meter when traffic volumes exceed the capacity of the corridor, or when there’s an accident or bad weather causes traffic to back up – or all of those things are occurring at once.  By stopping vehicles from entering the tunnel, it allows the existing back-ups inside of the tunnel to clear out.  Those stops usually last about 15 to 20 minutes because that’s about how long it usually takes to clear traffic from the tunnel.

The tipping point occurs when half the tunnel, about one mile, is at a dead stop.  That’s when we need the existing traffic to clear.  Inside the tunnel, there are only two lanes, no pull-outs or any shoulders.  On top of that, the vehicles are tightly wedged together.  All of that adds up to gridlock.  So if there’s a medical emergency, a fire (vehicle or otherwise), or some other problem in the tunnel or just outside of it, CDOT or some other entity, like the Colorado State Patrol, wouldn’t be able to respond.  Safety is CDOT’s first priority so we can’t let those types of conditions occur.

We also stop traffic – both eastbound and westbound – for other reasons as well.  Trucks carrying hazardous materials aren’t allowed to travel through the tunnel and must use Loveland Pass.  But adverse winter weather frequently closes the pass, requiring hazmat vehicles to travel through the tunnel.  CDOT does not allow hazmat to travel through the tunnel with other vehicles, again for safety.  So, usually at the top of the hour, we escort waiting hazmat loads through the tunnel.  Those closures usually last about 15 minutes.

As we move into March, which usually means more traffic due to additional snow and spring break, eastbound drivers should expect more metering on the weekends, primarily in the afternoon and usually on Sundays.  But please remember, tunnel metering can take place on eastbound and/or westbound I-70 at any time, for accidents, or for daytime avalanche control work.

You can call 511 from your cell phone or check our www.cotrip.org Web site – the information will be on the left side of the home page, under “Travel Alerts.”  We’ll also use the big electronic sign boards on I-70, and along Highways 6 and 9 to let drivers know when we’re metering.

Finally, be prepared before you head up to the tunnel.  If we’re metering, please stop in one of the Summit County towns and hit the restroom (especially if you have little ones with you), eat if you’re hungry and gas up your vehicle if it’s running low.  After you leave Silverthorne, the next services aren’t until the Georgetown area – 25 miles of no go, no fuel, and no food – but more frustration than you need as you finish off your day in Colorado’s high country.

Wet snow on the east side of the divide made the ride back to Denver quite unpredictable on the last day of February. Until mid-afternoon Sunday, it had been a very quiet – though busy – weekend for I-70 travel. As always, a little snow can make a big difference if drivers don’t adjust.

For those of you who were closely following our Guess the Mess contest, most of the afternoon it looked like the peak delay would be around 4:28 which would have made the vast majority of the entrants very close indeed. Then late in the afternoon a series of accidents brought travel to a halt. The peak delay as calculated by the GoI70 computer from CDOT data was at 6:46 when there was a 119 minute delay. In fact none of our players were so pessimistic.

We are contacting this week’s winners and will post their names by Friday. (If you think you have won, feel free to send us an email at games at goI70.com.)

Meanwhile, we have finally finalize the list of winners from our first Guess the Mess contest held on Sunday, February 21st. The first place winner was Eric Gever who won a pair of tickets to Copper Mountain. Sarah Walter took second and a pair of tickets to Arapahoe Basin. Runner-up prizes of a gift certificate to the Dillon Dam Brewery or a pair of Teko Ski socks were claimed by Emily Tracey, Bill Mathe, Ryan Hoelzer, Jim Davies, Marc Jensen and Sean Arkley. Congratulations to all our winners.

We are determined to make it worth your time to read this blog – this week’s first prize in our Guess the Mess contest is a 2 person, 2 day, 2 night ski package to Breckenridge Ski resort – it’s worth $1000.  Here is how to play and win Guess the Mess for Sunday, February 28th.

Playing is Simple

All you have to do is send us text message on our Messages Twitter channel or an email guessing what time on Sunday traffic will be at it’s slowest across the I-70 corridor as measured from Vail to Morrison on the western edge of the Denver metro region. You can enter at any time before 3 pm on Sunday, February 28th.

Tell us the time of the peak delay and how many extra minutes of travel delay exist on the road at that moment. Last week the correct answer was: 4:42 pm & 141 minutes (of extra travel time.)

Send us a message and you are entered. Detailed contest rules are here, but almost everyone who is 18 years old is eligible. You  can guess up to 3 times, the last guess is your final answer and entry for the contest.

Would you really like to win that resort package? Read the rest of this blog post on how to predict the peak time and extent of peak traffic. We will tell you everything you need to know to make a smart guess.

I-70 Traffic is Predictable

The flow of peak hour for weekend traffic on I-70 is predictable. If the roads are clear and nobody runs into the ditch while texting, then the the highway begins to fill up around 2 pm and very soon each extra car causes highway speeds to drop. Here is a graph of the delay on the I-70 corridor this past Sunday.

Eastbound I-70 travel delays for February, 2010

While we measure the trip from Vail to Morrison this is useful information for everyone whether you are traveling from Winter Park, Copper Mountain, Breckenridge, Arapahoe Basin or Aspen. The most severe delays are on the east side of the tunnel between Georgetown and Idaho Springs; these effect everyone traveling the corridor.

How to Pick the Winning Time

On most days the absolute peak of the rush hour will be between 3 and 5 pm. If there is a lot of snow or a lot of people lingering late on the slopes then the peak will be later in that period. (Traffic will remain heavy and slow until 6 pm and perhaps a little later, but you are trying to guess the peak.)

Weather is the big unknown factor. Obviously, a big storm will make for a longer travel time and, sometimes, a storm will push the delay later in the day. But, a little bit of snow on the highway just as people are leaving the resorts will also have a delaying effect, especially if travelers in a hurry to get home push too hard and cause accidents.

The final factor that you will want to take in account is how many people seem to be in the mountains for the day. If the snow on the slopes is good and everyone in your church is on the slopes, then the peak will be more intense. If it is still good after lunch, then people will wait to the last minute to go home.

Want more information? Scroll on down and take a look at the many earlier blog posts that discuss past traffic jams if you want to get an idea of how consistent this pattern is.

Finally, some of the GoI70 crew will be making their guesses on the GoI70 Messages Twitter channel early in the day. Check them out – they can’t win the prize but they will give you some insight into what the pros think a good guess will be.