Rocky mountain rush hour: I-70 traffic spurs debate.

• Author: Luzadder, Dan
• Position: Interstate Highway System

When Mayor Dennis Lunberry gazes out the window of his office in Idaho Springs' modest City Hall, it isn't western snowcaps he sees, but the flat, black four-lane interstate that divides his town in two. And Lunberry's future vision for the busy blacktop isn't a happy one. He sees not only a road filled with cars, but a path toward a troubled future for businesses and residents of his small, historic town--and for a half-dozen other communities that, like his, cling to the canyons along the Interstate 70 corridor.

For drivers passing by--and there are millions who travel the corridor each year to ski resorts and summer recreation areas--Lunberry's worrisome highway is simply a sluggish passageway that worsens on weekends and leaves drivers impatient and befuddled at sudden slowdowns and long waits. They dodge through Idaho Springs trying to beat the clock, or dash down off-ramps onto back roads through Georgetown looking for an escape valve. Instead they find nowhere to turn.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

"The trouble is, drivers get frustrated and end up not wanting to get off the highway to eat dinner or get a cup of coffee, or shop, because these delays have made them anxious to get where they are going," Lunberry muses. "It's something that, believe me, is vigorously discussed around here."

Long delays on seasonal weekends start before the ski lifts open and begin again after they close. In the summer, tourists clog the already-busy economic corridor that carries all the truck traffic and other commerce it can handle. The result is that residents who live along the corridor have adapted their lifestyle to the changing traffic patterns.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

"People learn not to go out of their houses during peak traffic hours," says JoAnn Sorensen, a county commissioner fully, to push for a mass transit solution to the heavy congestion that has plagued I-70 for years.

Lunberry feels their pain. With the fortunes of some 2,000 Idaho Springs residents on his mind, environmental concerns resting on his shoulders, and Colorado's major east-west economic lifeline acting like the arteries of a heart attack victim, Lunberry feels squeezed.

"In Idaho Springs, any highway widening encroaches on the town even more than I-70 already does," said Lunberry. "Currently the highway is 78 feet wide, and the most conservative footprint, even with a tiered highway, is 84 feet. That doesn't include right of way, or the slope and fill work that goes with it. If...