I-70

I left my house in Fort Collins at 5AM on Sunday to meet up with an out of town friend who was staying at Breckenridge. Rolling out of bed that early is a drag, but I made it all the way to Breck in just over 2 hours. Clear roads; no traffic; life was good.

Coming home, on the other hand, was a huge drag. I know better than to leave Summit County at 3:30 on a Sunday, but for some reason I decided to do it anyway. It took me as long to get to the east side of the Eisenhower tunnel as my entire drive in the morning. Ugh! In total, it was a 4.5 hour trip. There were no big accidents (that I know of), but the road just isn't able to handle the volume of traffic.

Heading west on I-70, once you pass the Dillon exit you are stuck on the highway. There's no other exits or turnaround points between there and the tunnel. If they decide to close the tunnel temporarily, you're stuck in a big parking lot. Inevitably, the traffic flows smoothly until you pass that point of no return. If there we some way to turn around, I bet the businesses in Dillon would see a huge increase in business. I know that if I had the choice between sitting in traffic and eating dinner in Dillon, I'd choose the latter.

The traffic on I-70 is hands down the number one reason I haven't purchased a ski pass for the past few years. Hopefully the ski resorts and towns can get creative and find solutions to the traffic problems. It's in their best financial interest. I wish I had some pearls of wisdom I could give to the CDOT and the ski industry to solve this problem, but I just don't know what to do. If I may paraphrase War Games, the only correct move is not to play.