OFFICIAL I70 BITCH THREAD....

[The SnowShow]

There are some by the east side of the twin tunnels....wonder if it's an experiment of sorts? Anyway, just found them great. I spent so much time driving last week in the dark, and was really easy to see. Or at least have them on curvy sections that are dark...

[capulin overdrive]

Speaking of lighting.

Anybody ever play around with deferent colored lights, fog lights, light bars, etc. for white outs? My fog lights used to help, but got a sled in the back now, and the things point up too high.

Anyways, blue lenses are supposed to be good for dust. Wonder if they help for snow?

[adrenalated]

My fog lights used to help, but got a sled in the back now, and the things point up too high.

You need airbags for your truck.

[bean]

Just got word that CDOT is going to start putting traffic back on mainline I-70 at the twin tunnels starting around Monday December 15.

[capulin overdrive]

You need airbags for your truck.

Sounds like work!


Ford needs to quit building wimpy pickups, if a 500 lb sled is dropping the rearend that much. Hell it's even a 8ft box, so most of the weight is in front of the axle.

[Below Zero]

Anybody ever play around with deferent colored lights, fog lights, light bars, etc. for white outs? My fog lights used to help, but got a sled in the back now, and the things point up too high.

Anyways, blue lenses are supposed to be good for dust. Wonder if they help for snow?

Colored lights are illegal. If you do get an HID conversion kit for you headlights, it's best to stay in the "white" range (4,300K or 6,000K)

[The SnowShow]

Just got word that CDOT is going to start putting traffic back on mainline I-70 at the twin tunnels starting around Monday December 15.

that's good to hear - now the pinchpoint will move west to the Idaho Springs bridge under construction

[matoco]

Has anybody gotten a bit nervous when driving in the left lane on the eastbound stretch of 70 that is under construction (I believe between Empire and Idaho Springs)? The grooved pavement is in a pretty bad spot along your left tires for a couple miles, and when trying to pass a semi it gets pretty tight with no shoulders on either side.

On another note, haven't gotten stuck in traffic once yet this year (as a weekend warrior), including driving back to Denver on Sunday around 6, so that has been nice. I'm sure the shitshow will start soon enough every weekend.

[MakersTeleMark]

I did a 6 a.m run through there on my moto a month or so ago and found it to be the most fun part of the journey. It kinda woke me up a bit. In a fun/good way. I dropped to 1st and had it redlined at 90. Who needs coffee?

[pfluffenmeister]

Has anybody gotten a bit nervous when driving in the left lane on the eastbound stretch of 70 that is under construction (I believe between Empire and Idaho Springs)? The grooved pavement is in a pretty bad spot along your left tires for a couple miles, and when trying to pass a semi it gets pretty tight with no shoulders on either side.

I like to drive that section straddling the grooved pavement; it's a little tight on the left side, but totally doable.

[Soups]

On another note, haven't gotten stuck in traffic once yet this year (as a weekend warrior), including driving back to Denver on Sunday around 6, so that has been nice. I'm sure the shitshow will start soon enough every weekend.

Got stuck going eastbound last Saturday around 2pm just before Empire. Nothing horrible, just slow to ID Springs. I think they were just wrapping up work for the day. Nothing going westbound yet. Normal shit ski traffic is coming all too soon.

[cmsummit]

Got stuck going eastbound last Saturday around 2pm just before Empire. Nothing horrible, just slow to ID Springs. I think they were just wrapping up work for the day. Nothing going westbound yet. Normal shit ski traffic is coming all too soon.

The Mrs. and I hit traffic on Saturday at ~5pm EB coming out of the Johnson Tunnel. Stop and go all the way until I exited at Georgetown and took the Frontage Road to ID Springs. Georgetown to Empire looked really bad. One thing I learned about the COtrip app......the posted travel speeds seem to be A LOT closer to the top speed you can hope to achieve for a short distance and are far from the average. Only the 2nd time I've ever been stuck in I70 traffic in 19 years of living in Summit, so I don't have too much to complain about.

[Soups]

The Mrs. and I hit traffic on Saturday at ~5pm EB coming out of the Johnson Tunnel. Stop and go all the way until I exited at Georgetown and took the Frontage Road to ID Springs. Georgetown to Empire looked really bad. One thing I learned about the COtrip app......the posted travel speeds seem to be A LOT closer to the top speed you can hope to achieve for a short distance and are far from the average. Only the 2nd time I've ever been stuck in I70 traffic in 19 years of living in Summit, so I don't have too much to complain about.

Sounds like regular traffic has begun then. Westbound shit will begin this weekend with the 2" of gnar predicted through Sunday.

[bean]

One thing I learned about the COtrip app......the posted travel speeds seem to be A LOT closer to the top speed you can hope to achieve for a short distance and are far from the average.

Whatever algorithm they use for predicting travel times completely breaks down when delays start. If you triple the posted delay you'll probably be close (e.g. if it says 1:10 for a trip that is posted at 1:00 during clear traffic, plan on 1:30). I complained about it years ago to one of the people who runs it and it's still as broken as ever.

[cmsummit]

Whatever algorithm they use for predicting travel times completely breaks down when delays start. If you triple the posted delay you'll probably be close (e.g. if it says 1:10 for a trip that is posted at 1:00 during clear traffic, plan on 1:30). I complained about it years ago to one of the people who runs it and it's still as broken as ever.

Good to know. COtrip speed was posted at 40mph - 45mph for the Tunnel to Bakersville and it took us ~20 minutes to go that distance which is about 15mph.

[matoco]

I've always had problems with COTrip. I always had bugs with the app so I always used the mobile web version (COtrip.org) on my phone. That isn't always accurate either I've found out. Lately I've started to use Google Maps with the traffic layer turned on for traffic around Denver/I-25 area and it has been pretty spot on (granted, this is on a computer, not a phone- although I know they do show traffic on their mobile app too). I know that they color code the roads for traffic in the I-70 corridor, but I haven't used it in traffic situations yet so I'm not sure how accurate it is.

[GPP33]

I've always had problems with COTrip. I always had bugs with the app so I always used the mobile web version (COtrip.org) on my phone. That isn't always accurate either I've found out. Lately I've started to use Google Maps with the traffic layer turned on for traffic around Denver/I-25 area and it has been pretty spot on (granted, this is on a computer, not a phone- although I know they do show traffic on their mobile app too). I know that they color code the roads for traffic in the I-70 corridor, but I haven't used it in traffic situations yet so I'm not sure how accurate it is.

Google maps is scary accurate. Like they have a drone flying around with live feed to the map people or something.

[Lindahl]

Google maps is scary accurate. Like they have a drone flying around with live feed to the map people or something.

They probably just use crowd-sourced travel time info from people running google map apps with gps and location services turned on.

[GPP33]

They probably just use crowd-sourced travel time info from people running google map apps with gps and location services turned on.

I think I had read that they are tracking speeds of all android phones (unless you turn it off). It's just amazing how accurate it is most of the time.

[capulin overdrive]

Ditto for the Google thing. The times are about what I'd do, but often no way to get those times without speeding.

[sp543]

Coming from just south of downtown Denver, where I usually do 25 to 6 over to shit show 70 it takes pretty close to 3 hours on a winter weekend to get up to Breck/Key/Abasin (Once it took a solid 5.5 hrs where I should have just said fuck it and turned around). Thats leaving aroud 6-6:30 in the morning. Would I be better off leaving 30-45min. earlier and hopefully heading up before the rush, or is 285 to 9 into breck a better option? Does 285 get slow going too? Then theres also the pass to get over as well... Just trying to figure out the fastest, most painless route other than moving to SLC or buying a helicopter.

[rpg]

I think I had read that they are tracking speeds of all android phones (unless you turn it off). It's just amazing how accurate it is most of the time.

That's pretty much exactly what they do (there's some stuff with Google Maps on other platforms too). It's easy enough to predict the baseline time to get from Pt. A to Pt. B with minimal/no traffic. What's harder is giving good estimates as to time when there's traffic. The real beauty of the system is that as the amount of traffic increases, the number of data points they have also increases and so it only becomes more accurate as the traffic (and thus delays) increase. I believe they also use historic data to smooth out their live data points.

The only times it should be inaccurate are when an unexpected event occurs (usually a crash that blocks an entire direction of the road) and there's a full stop in vehicles - then it gets harder. Even then though, they can (at least, they should be able to, so I would assume they do) make decent predictions based on CDOT info as to the accident and historical data of how long accidents w/ similar CDOT data in similar areas at similar times have taken to clear.

Now, back to bitching about i70.

The more you know.

[fastfred]

Coming from just south of downtown Denver, where I usually do 25 to 6 over to shit show 70 it takes pretty close to 3 hours on a winter weekend to get up to Breck/Key/Abasin (Once it took a solid 5.5 hrs where I should have just said fuck it and turned around). Thats leaving aroud 6-6:30 in the morning. Would I be better off leaving 30-45min. earlier and hopefully heading up before the rush, or is 285 to 9 into breck a better option? Does 285 get slow going too? Then theres also the pass to get over as well... Just trying to figure out the fastest, most painless route other than moving to SLC or buying a helicopter.

theres a million dollar question bro,

285 do you like windy 2 lane country roads

or do you like a 4 lane stop and go

I'd leave around 9pm friday night the flow will be good leave 9pm sunday night or 7 am mon morning good again, but the monday am is getting busier cause everyone thinks they have that figured out

[sp543]

theres a million dollar question bro,

285 do you like windy 2 lane country roads

or do you like a 4 lane stop and go

I'd leave around 9pm friday night the flow will be good leave 9pm sunday night or 7 am mon morning good again, but the monday am is getting busier cause everyone thinks they have that figured out

Not a huge fan of either, looks like my project for winter break will be turning my SUV into a college budget "ski condo" so I can just stay in summit which should double my days

[capulin overdrive]

Not a huge fan of either, looks like my project for winter break will be turning my SUV into a college budget "ski condo" so I can just stay in summit which should double my days

If Breck is the destination, 285 becomes more viable.

Do it, and see what you think. I take it over being stuck on 70.

Hoosier switchbacks piss me off, but other than that it ain't too bad. Right time of year Kenosha can be more trouble than Hoosier, with wetter warmer snow.