Hehehe...undetected, I seize the opportunity to write a letter...
Dear Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT),
Yes, I know I previously wrote you a letter (Moustache Unplugged #4 ), but I simply can't help myself when you provide such comical reactions to a chronic problem.
As a quick reminder, Interstate 70 traffic, particulary on weekends during ski season, turns the highway into a stop and go nightmare for 60 miles. This constipation is also seen outside the ski season, especially during the summertime and on holiday weekends. This nightmare isn't any new development, but a consistently overlooked failure on your part. For literally decades, this overpopulation of vehicles on the 2 lane interstate appears to only arouse smug shrugs from you.
You sprinkle the media with buzz words, insulting us as if we are really that gullible. "Pacing" was briefly fed to us where a series of police vehicles led distinct waves of travelers at a safe speed on the interstate. Guess what? To be blunt, that shit didn't work.
How do I know? Because that fad died overnight where you then inserted "metering" being the savior. Individual traffic lights over each lane flickering from green to red to synchronize the stop and go of cars to get them to flow at a steady speed is preposterous. Drivers are an impatient breed and will speed to catch the back bumper that's ahead of them and, bam, your quick fix is a flop. Dare I even mention to everyone how you actually had flaggers in orange vests standing along the highway twisting handheld stop 'n go signs mimicing the "metering" concept...what a pathetic joke.
Now, you've come up with another buzz word to smear across the media. "Snowplow Escorts." You deflect responsibility by sternly pointing fingers to drivers with ill-equipped vehicles causing the traffic jams. Yes, bald tires and snow are a bad mix, but they are such an insignificant ingredient to the disastrous recipe that I roll my eyes. You plan on tossing a huge band-aid on this little problem by having snowplows leading waves of travelers--much like the "pacing" with police cars. The only thing that will make this solution stupider (although not a word, its fitting), is if this is performed on sunny days with dry pavement.
Once again, let me remind you of the REAL problem.
IT'S TOO MANY TRAVELERS ON TOO SMALL OF A ROADWAY.
It's been that way for years, so let me remind you again since you have an incredibly short memory.
IT'S TOO MANY TRAVELERS ON TOO SMALL OF A ROADWAY.
Either mass transit or more lanes are the solutions. Ah, but let me give you a soft golf clap for applause. Another experimental fix you recently fed the media was providing charter buses that will have access to the right shoulder as their own private lane of travel. Holy cow, there's someone thinking outside the box! Was he/she smoking the now legal marijuana? This concept is a primitive form of...you guessed it... mass transit! Congratualtions.
More lanes or mass transit are the only ways to resume an acceptable flow on the interstate. "But," you cry, "that's expensive!" Yup, so get busy. Most of these traveler's are heading to ski resorts and I wonder what a simple $1 mass transit surcharge on a daily lift ticket would do for funding? Beaver Creek, Vail, Copper Mountain, Breckenridge, Keystone, Arapahoe Basin, Loveland, and Winter Park are major resorts which I-70 feeds. I tried to include total number of skiers for the season from the resorts, but oddly, that data can't be found. I'm guessing the surcharge would generate millions...and that's just a start.
Get busy, because the population will continue to grow and saturate the already too crowded highway. Let's not have an identical conversation in another year!
Thank You,
The Moustache
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