Tips for Driving I-70 from State Patrol

Nothing ruins a great weekend of skiing like driving I-70. Colorado State Patrol finds that the following areas are hot spots for accidents.

Notorious accident spots:

• Five mile section (mile markers 216 to 221) in the eastbound lanes just east of the Eisenhower Tunnel. That stretch includes the on-ramp where ski traffic from Loveland Ski Area merges onto the interstate. This spot can often be icy. Combine that with ski traffic and accident potential is high.
• Officer's Gulch between Copper Mountain and Frisco. Drivers come down off Vail Pass and they think they've finished their decent, but there's still downgrade in that area a lot of curves and some shading of the roadway.
• Hidden Valley area east of Idaho Springs near the Twin Tunnels where sharp curves often cause trucks commonly to tip over.
• Fall River at 237, especially eastbound there's a very sharp right hand curve drivers get caught by surprise at that sharp right hand curve, especially in snow and ice.

The State Patrol has analyzed their accident data base over a number of years and found that the #1 cause of accidents is impatient drivers driving too fast for road conditions. I-70 changes conditions can change rapidly throughout your drive. Weather may be inconsistent, shade and curves can catch drivers unexpectedly. But no matter how anxious you are to make it home play it safe.

Your View of I-70

photo by Dave Amirault

The results are in and it’s a landslide. But you won't be surprised. Our front page poll asked "What do you think of the new bill proposed by Senator Chris Romer?". That’s the one that proposes a weekend toll on I-70 during ski season.

And here’s how you voted:

What a fabulous idea?—18% (48/265)

Is he nuts?—82% (217/265)

Coincidentally, the Denver Business Journal asked it’s readers a similar question with similar results. DBJ reader comments ranged from polite rotten tomatoes to some rather nasty things.

So is Sen. Romer discouraged? No way. Seems this kind of furor is exactly what the Senator thinks is needed to solve the slow, noisey, stinky mess. So he’s set up his own Google Group as a public forum for comments, ideas and beatings. You can comment to Sen. Romer at Fix I-70 Now.

Meanwhile nothing has changed on the I-70 Coalition Web site. And in a loosely related story The Colorado House of Representatives will begin studying the management of toll roads. This isn’t part of the I-70 study that CDOT is conducting. Instead this is related to the private management of E-470—a nine-mile link joining Interstate 25 and the Boulder Turnpike. The struggling highway brings up the question of whether private businesses should manage public roads. This particular road has been failing since it opened under the shared management of 2 counties and 1 municipality and continues on the low road after foreign investors took it over. But E-470 is a different animal from I-70 in that it’s an optional route, not the only route.

And so the I-70 saga continues...