If you are still up in the Colorado mountains Monday morning, July 5th, you can expect very heavy traffic on your way back to the Denver metro area. This year’s 4th of July holiday travelers were late to start heading west and, it appears they will be coming home Monday. The usual Sunday eastbound traffic jam never developed this year; indeed the highway ran smoothly all day.

Since plenty of folks made the trip west Friday and Saturday, it is a fair bet that the traffic patterns we predicted for Sunday will appear on Monday afternoon. What goes up, will come down.

Obviously we missed the call about the Sunday eastbound traffic. The Monday official holiday seems to be almost universally honored this year. We weren’t expecting this. Indeed travelers seemed to have take a more laid back approach to their outings this 4th. They started out later on Friday than in any recent year . I-70 was jammed Saturday as well which is something we had not seen in previous data. Still, the fundamentals are simple – lots of folks went west Friday and Saturday and most of them will be heading back Monday.

So if you want to avoid the heavy delays eastbound, your best bet is to leave before 10 or after 7 or perhaps later. Keep an eye on the highway from your phone on the GoI70/mobile site http://goI70.com/mobile. We’ll be carrying up to the minute information about highway conditions, traffic cams and travel times.  Have a safe trip.

Day skiers looking to meet up with friends or catch a carpool to the mountains can use the Dinosaur Lots  just off I-70 at Exit 259, the intersection of Morrison Road. They are convenient, easy to find and free.

Carpoolers with four or more riders qualify for free premier parking at Keystone or discounted lift tickets at A-Basin. The Dinosaur Lots have a lively meet up scene on weekends and holidays. It is a great place to pick up an extra rider to fill up your car.

The Dinosaur Lots are perfect for meeting people coming from any part of the metro area. They are located right at the mouth of Mount Vernon Canyon where I-70 enters the foothills. If you are going up I-70 you pass right by it.

The largest of the lots is the Wooly Mammoth which has 1181 free spots where day trippers can park to meet up with friends or catch a ride with someone headed their way. Wooly Mammoth is just west of Morrison Road at the intersection of US 40/State Highway 26 and I-70.

For folks coming through Golden, either west on Colfax or from the north – Westminster or Boulder – just follow US 40, turning right at the intersection immediately before the west on-ramp to I-70. The entrance to the Wooly Mammoth lot is 200 yards from the intersection.

Two smaller lots – the T-Rex and the Stegosaurus – are near by on the east side of US 40 and Morrison Road (State Highway 26). They provide several hundred more spaces. T-Rex can be seen on your right as you come off the ramp from West I-70 at Exit 259. The Stegosaurus lot is south on the Morrison Road just under the I-70 overpass.

This is a great resource provided by the Colorado Department of Transportation. Take advantage of it today. Save gas, save some money and meet up with someone to share the ride.

Discounts and Free Parking for Carpools

Carpoolers can take advantage of discounted lift tickets at A-Basin for anyone who arrives in a car with four or more passengers. Just take your carpool members to the ticket window to get $47 lift tickets, a $17 discount. More information is here.

Keystone offers free close-in premier parking at their Montezuma Lot for vehicles with four or more passengers. For more information check here.

Later in the season Copper Mountain offers Carpool Celebration Days. We’ll let you know about those in the weeks to come.

If you are coming home from the mountains along I-70 this Labor Day weekend, you can skip the rush hour traffic and be in bed at a reasonable hour if you just remember this simple motto. “Leave after 6, be home at 8.”

Wherever you are along I-70 on Labor Day, the traffic will clear around 6 pm and you will have a quick trip home. The highway may be a little crowded, but unless there is extreme weather or an accident, it will move well near the speed limit. We suggest you have dinner in the mountains and enjoy your weekend for just a little longer.

Are we sure? Nothing can be predicted with 100% certainty, but the historic record of traffic speeds along I-70 is remarkably predictable. On holidays like Labor Day, I-70 fills up and slows down according to a pattern.

The Labor Day weekend began with the eastbound flow of traffic on Saturday morning. As vacationers from the Denver metro area headed to the mountains the highway filled up and slowed down. A traveler leaving Denver at noon would spend 21 minutes extra getting to Vail. This is an additional drive time of almost 25% over normal conditions.

The charts below compare last Saturday to the Saturday of Labor Day Weekend 2008. Traffic speeds on these two days were for all practical purposes identical.

[A little help with reading our graphs: These graphs show the TOTAL DELAY along the highway from Vail to the Morrison entrance/exit at the point where the Rockies rise from the plains. So if you leave your starting point (Denver) after noon you can expect to spend and extra 20 or 30 minutes on the hour and a half segment from Morrison to Vail. This is very accurate history, but no two days are alike, so don't think you can beat the rush unless you head out much earlier. Historically, the end of congestion/delay has been much more reliable.]

COMING HOME FROM THE MOUNTAINS

So what do we have to look forward to coming home from the mountains?

On Sunday, travelers coming east toward Denver on I-70 will experience a moderate slow down similar to the delay going west toward the mountains on Saturday. The delay will begin around 3 pm and will last until 6. The beginning of the slow down is harder to predict than the end, so anyone wanting to beat the rush will want to leave well before 3 pm.

Here is last year’s DELAY from Vail to Morrison:

There will be moderate slow down beginning sometime around 3 pm. If you leave Vail at the peak -more or less 4 pm – you will spend as much as an extra half hour making the hour and a half trip from Vail to the plains. Of course, if anything goes haywire then the delay might be much longer, but this is what you should expect.

LABOR DAY will be a different story. If you leave anytime much after breakfast you can expect to spend a lot of time on the highway. Traffic will begin to slow down by 10 am and will slow to an average of perhaps 40 miles an hour for several hours. It will probably test your good humor as at times the traffic will come to a halt and then speed up, only to slow to a crawl a mile or two later.

If you must travel during these hours expect that the 89 minute trip will take you two or two and a half hours. (If the weather goes gnarly or someone plows into the car in front of him as he tries to make up for lost time, then it may be worse.)

Here is the graph for Labor Day 2008.

There you go. Now if you take this, check the weather and the oil and tires on your car, you have all the information that you probably need to plan your return trip from the mountains. Have a wonderful weekend.