"fuck off you asshat gaper shit for brains fucktard wanker." - Jesus Christ
"She was tossing her bean salad with the vigor of a Drunken Pop princess so I walked out of the corner and said.... "need a hand?"" - Odin
"everybody's got their hooks into you, fuck em....forge on motherfuckers, drag all those bitches across the goal line with you." - (not so) ill-advised strategy
that is the answer to the so called "problem" right there
I watched the people staying next door come home from skiing, pack up the car and leave at 3pm to head back to denver. I know they were not seasoned denver/mtn ski people but it was the shear stupidity of it all, I wanted to say "hey you don't mind sitting in a little traffic huh?"
they didn't have to be out of the house at a certain time etc..... they could have just chilled till 6 or so had dinner relaxed around town and then headed home but some sort of lemming mentality said they had to finish skiing pack up and leave town to get home in the middle of the afternoon.
cdot has been running signs all week long weeks on end now on the elec. signs saying "heavy traffic on sat and sun" some people just don't read or their cars are so comfortable with tv's and heated seats that sitting in them for 2-4 hrs isn't a big deal.
Sunday's traffic was a little weird and not sure why. We usually leave Denver around 6, get to Loveland, have breakfast, stretch, etc., and then grab first chair. Ski hard till noon and then head back. There was zero traffic on the way as usual, and we even ended up getting there a little earlier then we normally do, but traffic was already slammed on the way home, which is pretty unusual in our experience. Seemed a ton of people left Winterpark early.
If they could get 3 lanes, both directions, between 40 and I-70, it would really help I think. Have the exits and entrances on 40 just go right into that third lane. The Eisenhower and Johnson tunnels are what they are, and you are not going to get three lanes through Georgetown. This would help with summer traffic as well, which as stated a couple pages ago, is more spread out. If you had three lanes all the way to 40, more people would spread to places like Steamboat, go the back way to Kremmling for floating the Colorado, more people to Grand County and RMNP, etc.
Last weekend was also ridiculous. We were coming from Glenwood Springs after a day on Fork, and left Carbondale around 5pm. Took us 4 hours to get home, which I guess isn't that bad, but the reason it took longer was. There was a storm and some snow on Vail pass, and no joke, not a single 18-wheeler had chains. There was one stuck spinning its tires every 1/4 mile going up the pass. WTF...put on your damn chains. Then of course, there was the traffic at the tubes, and people getting stuck. They need to do what they do in California. During snow storms, no chains, and no four wheel drive? Sorry, you can't go and if you get stuck and are caught...boom, big fine.
I also like the idea of opening the lifts a little earlier on the weekends. Could also make I-70 a toll road on Saturdays and Sundays, with rates escalated during the peak windows, which should get more people to car pool, drive at different times, maybe stay more nights, lower the 18-wheeler traffic at peak times, and particularly in the summer, funnel more Denverites to the southern part of the state down 285, which needs to be made 4 lanes all the way to Salida, or less people will go all together due to the higher cost.
If they do these things, which are cheaper workable solutions, we would be in a much better spot, with more options for those people that don't want to sit in traffic.
"We had nice 3 days in your autonomous mountain realm last weekend." - Tom from Austria (the Rax ski guy)
Honestly...I don't mind the fact that it takes an extra half hour to get up to skiing on Saturday mornings or to get home on Sunday evenings (Saturday evening and Sunday morning traffic has been almost non-existent, by the way) Skiing is really fun, and if it means i have to sit in a little traffic...who cares? I still get to ski for 7 1/2 hours each day. I love the fact that I live in a state where people enjoy outdoor recreation so much. Sure beats living in NYC or LA, where you get to sit in hellacious traffic to do mundane things.
I left Loveland at 4:15 yesterday and was home by 6:00. It takes 1:15 with no traffic. extra half hour...no biggie.
"We had nice 3 days in your autonomous mountain realm last weekend." - Tom from Austria (the Rax ski guy)
On the real bad Sunday last week the CDOT mobile app said one hour Silverthorne to Denver. It took 3.5 to get to the tunnel. I have checked the app a few times since and the times on the app are not even close. The sign in Silverthorne is not correct either. I don't know if the main website is much better but the mobile app is a joke.
I know I'm repeating myself but until there are chain laws or 4wd laws in place, shit like that bad Sunday is going to keep happening during heavy snows. 7" piled up quickly at the tunnel, with dozens of cars and trucks spun out, including a fucking Fiat. Who the hell drives a Fiat in the middle of a blizzard?
And if the staties aren't going to bother to enforce chains on trucks, we're doubly fucked. I've seen too many asshole truckers spinning their wheels in the right lane while there's an hour of traffic building up behind him. Seems pretty easy to at least help the problem by enforcing chain laws for trucks and creating them for all over vehicles like they have in UT, CA and WA.
Totally agree, but 4WD doesnt solve the problem. In just a quick trip over Vail Pass that day, I saw at least 10 cars spinning out, 3 of them were 4WD. I also saw plenty of FWD vehicles having no problems at all. The reality of the situation was bald tires (and trucks w/o chains).
the app blows goats, I never use it. And the website isn't always perfect, last night its times for US-40 were weird. Still, it generally provides a useful reference point, and I have not found it to be terribly suspect. It is set up for mobile use and is fairly easy to use; toss the app.
"fuck off you asshat gaper shit for brains fucktard wanker." - Jesus Christ
"She was tossing her bean salad with the vigor of a Drunken Pop princess so I walked out of the corner and said.... "need a hand?"" - Odin
"everybody's got their hooks into you, fuck em....forge on motherfuckers, drag all those bitches across the goal line with you." - (not so) ill-advised strategy
^^Couldn't agree more. That app is fucking beyond worthless
What is the reason they haven't put laws like these other states in place? They have spent money talking crazy about high speed trains, paying cops to escort people...doesn't cost that much to put some laws on the books and some signs on the highway...relatively.
"We had nice 3 days in your autonomous mountain realm last weekend." - Tom from Austria (the Rax ski guy)
Who the fuck is going to hump all their gear from a car to a train to a bus to a ski area...and then where do you dump your shit when you get there? And then the time and horseshit getting home. And a cost of $50+ per person...if it ever gets past the discussion stage each and every politician and business participating should be slapped until they can't stand again.
Fucking morons thinking even a few people would pay and deal with that hassle. And then in the summer...the train/bus going to drop you at a trailhead and pick you up after hiking or camping?
Fucking morons.
Take a breath, smoke a bowl, calm down...
You ever heard of ski lockers? There are plenty of people that ski one resort often enough to leave their ski stuff there, or better yet a ski locker at the train stop, and ride the train with a backpack. The idea isn't to completely replace I-70 with a train, the idea is to take like 75% of people off the road in the winter (and a lesser percentage in the summer).
Of course you can still drive your sweet Xterra plastered with stickers from all your favorite outdoor companies and loaded with two rocket boxes to the trailhead of your choice, you asshat.
Have you ever been to Europe or Japan? They have virtually perfected the use of trains to get to and from skiing.
Unfortunate but true. Fucking morons can't pay attention for the drive and need to do other things while fucking traffic. If people had proper equipment, knew how to use it and actually paid attention traffic wouldn't be an issue. But they insist on not using signals, driving in the left lane while not passing, picking their noses and asses, jerking off, texting, talking on the phone, etc and always slow traffic.
Post messages on the electronic boards that cops will ticket and/or arrest you for being a moron and things might improve. Then actually get the cops to do something productive versus tagging someone going a little too fast on clear pavement and we'd be golden. Unfortunately the world is being set up so fucking morons of the lowest common denominator are handheld dragging the rest of us down with them.
chain/4wd controls don't stop the bald tires problem (assholes in 4wd with bald tires get through just fine) or the drive like assholes problem (they crash just the same), it just shifts the traffic delays to before the checkpoint and makes a little cottage industry for chain installers/vendors.
nobody actually wants to ride public transportation to go skiing.
Yep. I've been in FWD car with snows and had to stop. When it comes time to restart a FWD car with snows > than a 4wd with crap tires. My parents Corolla with snows has been in this scenario over and over. British Columbia requires snow tires for highway going vehicles. Colorado could require it on I-70 especially when it snows. Chains otherwise. AWD or 4wd with bald tires should be turned back as well. Enforcement is key. When people are sitting still and not going anywhere anyway I could see the tire police having zero problem turning people around if they were empowered to do so.
That is a good idea.
Count me among the fucking idiot morons. Tourists fly in to DEN for weekend and grab a train to ski area of choice. No car to rent. No hassle. Newsflash: when I fly in for the weekend I carry everything on and walk out of the airport with all my gear. Not a big deal. These weekenders don't have much luggage and they are exactly the people you want to get off the highway at 8 am on Saturday morning. Front ranger gets on train and sleeps for an hour wakes up at resort. If the train doesn't drop you right at the resort the infrastructure would be created almost instantly to get people on a quick bus and building lockers is one hell of a lot cheaper than roads.
I-70 is a junkshow all the way to Vail. Look at all the stress it is causing you guys even when you are not on the thing. A friend of mine up on Floyd complains they can't go anywhere without worrying about being stuck on that thing. If I ski on Sunday with a flight home Sunday night I stress all damned day about getting back to DEN on that road and I leave hours earlier than I would if it wasn't so clustered. To me a train seems inevitable. Expensive as hell to build now but even more so in the future. And every gaper from Iowa on the train is one less person on that godforsaken road. I remember when I-70 was a little two lane through the canyon to Glenwood. We'd listen to John Denver and really feel like we were deep inside the mountains on a skinny shit road...and there was no traffic. That utopia isn't coming back.
Everybody who is saying that a train will happen seems to forget about the 30 billion dollar price tag. A train will never happen for that reason alone, but it also won't happen because it would require 3 transfers to get from DIA to keystone. (Transfer from DIA airport line to West Line, Transfer from West Line to Mountain Train, Transfer from mountain train onto bus to keystone)
No one is going to want to take that train. I am sure that if a train was ever built, tickets would be prohibitively expensive as well.
For 30 billion dollars we could build a massive brand new ski resort somewhere other than I-70 with the most amazing snowmaking infrastructure on earth and connect it by a 25 mile gondola and still have 15 billion left over.
Maybe they should just build tunnels or roofs over I-70 from Denver to Vail, or at least at the passes. Never have to plow or worry about icy roads!
I agree. For all of those people saying "sure, I'd take that train all the time"... how many times did you ride the Winter Park Ski Train? There's just too much inconvenience and too little flexibility with it. The only people who would truly benefit are the tourists, who could avoid the CME junkshow and hop on the train at DIA instead.
I still think the short term answer is a combination of improving 285 to make it a viable option for the south metro folks, and financially encouraging carpooling. Not just free coffee bullshit, but 50% off lift tickets and other things that actually change behaviors for all those people driving solo. Make it easier to have 3-4 people riding together.
I like the roof idea, but haven't put much though into the caveats. Wouldn't do shit for summer, but I don't think much can be done about that.
I like the idea of having I-70 from US.6 go up to about 12,000 feet by the morrison exit. Then you'd have a straight away at 12,000 feet all the way across till vail, with 50 degree exits that would be sweet to ski on powder days.
Bookmarks