Here at the Citizen we encourage public comment. In fact, we thrive on it. Oftentimes, this comes in the form of a response. Hopefully, you’ve found it easy to simply respond below an article or commentary. However, if like Fred, you would like to write a longer piece, please send it to us and we’ll post it for you. There is no cost, but we hope you will support our sponsors (represented in the ads to the left). A well-written commentary placed on the Citizen can reach thousands of people, here in Salida —and around the world. see opportunities. -bd
Editorial by Fred Rasmussen
As an ex-member of the Front Range BLM RAC (Resource Advisory Council) for many years, including the early Christo days, I am very disappointed that this absurd proposal has reached the stage of an EIS. CDOT should have weighed in a long time ago to prevent this transportation nightmare from even getting serious thought.
Thirteen years ago, or near to that, a CDOT representative told our RAC that this proposal had the prospect of causing very serious traffic and safety issues for Colorado especially if held when summer vacation traffic would be heavy. (Summer traffic now, judging from the traffic on the highway by my home, is much more dense now) So, a few days ago when I picked up a CD of the EIS from the local library, I went first to the CDOT transportation section to see if those earlier concerns were reflected in the EIS. They were, in spades, but buried among the small print.
For example, estimated travel time for east bound traffic between Canon City and Salida is 55.4 minutes and west bound 54.5 minutes with this caveat; the following common conditions are not accounted for by the model, “accidents and associated response requirements, natural phenomena (landslides, rocks, rain, hail, etc. motorists driving slower than assumed speeds by fabric panels and reduced travel speed by our of state visitors who are not familiar/comfortable with the roadway geometry and terrain.) Surely all of these conditions are very likely to occur and provide serious problems every hour of every day for the citizens that live along highway 50.
Further in the CDOT section two possible delay scenarios are cited that bring some reality to what might happen during OTR. A brief, five minute delay, such as a fender bender, is predicted to create a traffic queue of about 1.2 miles that would last as long as 43 minutes. About 750 vehicles would be brought to a standstill. A 20 minute delay, pretty common stuff on hwy 50, would create a queue of nearly 3 miles, involve 600 vehicles while traffic is stopped and delay about 2,450 vehicles. BUT the delays predicted by the 5 and 20 minute scenarios both assume that traffic is released in both directions at the same time. If traffic must be alternated in a one-way direction (happens most of the time) all bets are off. The delays would be significantly larger, the queues much longer creating dangerous and costly delays for the people in the queues as well as the natives along the highway. All this for a period of 2 weeks during the heaviest traffic season of the year. Bad news.
There are no predictions on what the delay would be from a serious accident or how many small ones might occur each day because of the traffic volume (upwards of 10,000 vehicles per day) or the plentitude of angry drivers sitting unmoving in their cars. Allowing this project to go ahead when you know better will create an “oil spill” if Cristo’s ideas are allowed fruition and it will come down on you just like BP. None of the interim plans in the EIS really speak to avoiding or dealing with this monumental traffic mess.
Also included in this section of the EIS are projections for traffic delays in Canon City and Salida. Salida fares better but at many places in Canon City it will be a long extended nightmare and BLM will rightly inherit the blame.
Next, there is the very deceptive, short and downplayed mention that interstate and intrastate traffic could be diverted. As I recall the CDOT person, can’t remember the name, at our RAC meeting said that arteries that fed U.S. 50 might have to be closed to vacation and commercial traffic that intended to use 50 going east. That included Tennessee Pass, Fremont Pass, U.S. 50 from Grand Junction and 285/17 from Alamosa. This major impact on southeast Colorado would create havoc to normal traffic to say nothing of the angry business interests that would be affected.
OTR should never have reached this stage where people are diverted with minor issues such as wildlife and making money from tourists when blocking a major artery in Colorado during tourist season and depriving 5,000 residents of normal commerce, making a living plus compromising their health and safety are the overriding concerns. Will you take responsibility if people die because your jury-rigged plans just don’t work?
End it now before it comes back to bite you hard. It is a dumb idea whose time has run out.
A well-traveled and passionate angler and environmental educator who forgot to retire, Fred Rasmussen has served on more boards and committees on planning, conservation and land and river-use issues – including the national board of Trout Unlimited – than even he can remember.
Opinions expressed in citizen commentaries do not necessarily reflect those of the Citizen staff.
Fred is spot on in his editorial. In the DEIS section 4.16 , it states Traffic data from 2008 was collected from CDOT’s permanent traffic count station #000248, which is located west of Coaldale. The 2008 data was compared to similar 2005 data collected and reported in the Over the River Project Traffic Operations Analysis report prepared by David Evans and Associates, Inc.
(June 2006). Comparing the 2005 traffic volumes to the 2008 traffic volumes shows there has been little to no growth in the Project Area. Therefore, the 2005 traffic volumes will be considered as the local existing background traffic so not to duplicate previous analysis.
While the CDOT website’s FAQ states: Vehicle travel on Colorado State Highways increased by 59% between 1990 and 2008, from 17.7 billion vehicle miles of travel (VMT) to 28.1 billion VMT. Vehicle travel on Colorado State Highways is projected to increase by another 66% by 2035, to 46.7 billion vehicle miles of travel.
We can extrapolate from the data that traffic from 2008 to 2013 will increase approximately 30%, which is a significant amount. The DEIS also states that there will be no significant impact from a 2 year long road construction project. Science demonstrates that when traffic is stopped at a lane closure, vehicle “waves” form. Traffic waves, also called stop waves or traffic shocks, are traveling disturbances in the distribution of cars on a highway. Traffic waves usually travel backwards in relation to the motion of the cars themselves, or “upstream” The waves can also travel downstream, but more commonly become “pinned” to a single spot on the road.
Traffic waves are a type of traffic jam. A deeper understanding of traffic waves is a goal of the physical study of traffic flow. Traffic waves are common along construction areas, and of particular significance when a wave along a winding 2 lane highway catches a wave in front of it, which would be likely along US 50 given that 4 lane closures are possible along the 50 mile length. The waves then will coalesce into a wide moving jam. The average vehicle speed within the wide moving jams is much lower than the average speed in free flow, which is what the traffic modeling used in the DEIS ignores. At the downstream front the vehicles might accelerate to the free flow speed. At the upstream jam front the vehicles come from free flow or synchronized flow and must reduce their speed. Empirical results show, that some characteristic features of wide moving jams are independent of the traffic volume and bottleneck features (e.g. where and when the jam has emerged). However, these characteristic features are dependent on weather conditions, road conditions, vehicle technology, percentage of long vehicles, etc. As the DEIS does not take these items into account, and is using outdated data to make it’s predictions, the traffic section of the DEIS must be redone using current data extrapolated to the dates of construction and display / dismantling for analysis.
Furthermore there is mention of a traffic management plan, which is yet to be developed. As traffic management is a crucial element of OTR, one of the most significant parts of the analysis of the projects feasibility or lack thereof, I submit that without this analysis detailing how traffic will be managed during the construction, display and 3 to 5 year reclamation phases, that it will be impossible to select a preferred alternative for what is a 6 to 8 year duration project other than the ‘no action’ alternative.