I-70 Coalition, setting the pace for the future

Traffic on I-70

Don't Play in Traffic

You live in Colorful Colorado. So imagine you want to travel from the Front Range to the mountains, let's say Golden to Vail. You leave on a Wednesday morning about 7 a.m. and arrive in Vail at about 8:30. During the drive you see majestic vistas, historic towns, bighorn sheep and average more than 60 miles per hour.

If you make the same trip on a Saturday morning, you will arrive in Vail at about 10 a.m., and you will experience bumper-to-bumper traffic, flashing brake lights and average about 35 miles per hour. You have just experienced peak-demand travel along Interstate 70.

What You Can Do Now!

Since major I-70 improvements are decades away, what can travelers do now to avoid the latter of the above two scenarios?

  1. Spend the night. Are you a day-tripper? Get onto some e-mail lists of resorts and lodging companies to take advantage of special deals. Or get a bunch of friends together to go in on a condo rental for the season. Having somewhere to relax during peak traffic times can increase your flexibility when it comes to hitting the road. Heading to the mountains for a summer weekend? Camping can be a cheap and fun way to extend your stay and avoid traffic headaches.
  2. Carpool. Fewer vehicles on the road means less of a traffic jam for everyone. And maybe you can catch some Z's while a friend or family member is at the wheel. Don't know anyone to ride with? Strike up a conversation on the chairlift, in the bike shop or in the hot tub to meet fellow travelers. Are you a commuter? Try carpooling just three times a week to get a taste of the benefits to your psyche and your wallet. Try www.skicarpool.com.
  3. Take public transportation. A bus or van service can also take the pressure off weary drivers. Try www.greyhound.com or www.ridecme.com.
  4. Avoid peak traffic. Don't head west on Friday afternoons or Saturday mornings. Avoid eastbound travel on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. If you're planning a mountain vacation or a trip to Denver from the mountains, make your plans to avoid these high-congestion times.
  5. Get creative with your workweek and vacation time. Use vacation time to tack an extra day onto your weekends. Or better yet, try taking a couple midweek days off instead. Take your Memorial Day or Labor Day holidays a week early or late. Ask your boss whether you can work four 10-hour days so that every weekend is a three-day weekend. Or explore the possibility of changing your workweek to Tuesday-Saturday. Not only will you avoid traffic jams, you'll have slopes, trails, shops and grocery aisles all to yourself. Hey, you don't know unless you ask!
  6. Look before you drive. Check on traffic and weather conditions before you leave. If I-70 is bumper-to-bumper, wait an hour or two on the couch or in your favorite restaurant. You can check up-to-the-minute road conditions on television Channel 22 in Summit County or on the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) travel website, www.cotrip.org.

The items above are tactics that you might be able to use, starting today, to make your travel to and from the mountains more enjoyable and efficient. The implementation of these tactics requires new and unusual habits for many of us, changing the way we think about doing business, planning leisure time and organizing our lives. But with your participation and support, you're not only finding solutions to your own inconveniences, but also doing your part to chip away at the larger problem for everyone.

These tips are part of a much larger set of Travel Demand Management (TDM) strategies developed by the I-70 Mountain Corridor Coalition. To view the entire TDM document, click here.