US-24 Sucks!

[Bobby H]

I have written CDOT about the dangers of US-24 years ago. I suppose if it's possible I can try to collect news articles about all the people who have died on that highway in accidents east of Colorado Springs and flood them with that. Or maybe just send that to some other news organizations to generate some embarrassingly bad publicity.

I recognize the political difficulties in getting an old road like US-24 improved. But that situation should be trumped when a certain stretch of road starts piling up a body count.

The political situation with Denver reminds me of how Tulsa hogs up so much funding in Oklahoma. Still, Oklahoma is a less populated, less affluent, less politically connected state than Colorado yet somehow Oklahoma manages to get a lot of divided highway miles built. The "Sooner State" by no means has anything remotely close to a perfect highway system (just look at the problems OK has with its bridges). But when a few grisly accidents occur in particular place in Oklahoma the resulting public outrage usually forces something to be done.

In the early 1990s, a number of fatal head-on collisions happened in rapid succession along a certain tolled stretch of I-44. The road had narrow grassy medians and no inside left shoulders making crossover accidents a very scary scenario. The state responded by building concrete "Jersey barriers" in the median for most of I-44's length in Oklahoma. OK route 49 in Medicine Park used to be a dangerous 2 lane that cut through small mountains and hillsides. After so many head on collisions the road was finally four-laned and made much safer. Sadly, no highway is going to ever be perfect. I've heard word this evening of an accident near the I-44 Medicine Park exit with five fatalities. Don't know the details yet.

I'm not from Colorado, but I have observed a number of "cultural" things in my visits there.

I agree there is a "pro-business" low tax political environment there with the hypocrisy of closet socialism running as an under-current. Some rich developer spouts the Republican ideals of low taxes and small government yet he gets the "little people" taxpayers to foot the infrastructure bills for his development property and short-changes the taxpayers on funding needed for the main roads and infrastructure vital for the overall economic health of the city.

There's also a kind of fashion movement among some of the more vocal hippie/liberal types living there who are fervently against the building of new highways. Some of those folks get some TV time and the "pro business" sect takes advantage of the situation, basically telling the voters it's impossible to build the highways right. I guess that's how a modest widening project on I-25 in the 'Springs can stretch out for more than a decade.

Finally, the city of Colorado Springs just doesn't have any sense of long term planning. The corridors of Woodmen Road and Powers Blvd, along with the insanity of US-24 are good examples of that.

Powers was originally supposed to be a full blown Interstate highway. Instead, it's now merely a big divided street with some very busy at grade traffic intersections. Since lots of major retail development has rapidly occurred along the road it may be impossible to ever upgrade that route to a superhighway. CDOT doesn't have the right of way needed for any such expansion. Now it's a major undertaking just to build an ordinary highway interchange (such as the current project at Powers and Woodmen Road).

The only area where Colorado Springs has done anything correctly regarding Powers is along certain sections north of Woodmen Road. They copied a tactic long used by Texas for decades in securing corridors: build a four-lane divided street with a huge median wide enough to hold a future super-highway. Years or decades later when that super-highway is finally built the original lanes on the outside can serve as frontage roads. And the taxpayers don't get raped for a fortune on having to buy up additional right of way.

[COflower]

Hey Bobby H - My parents built a house (if you know our city that well) in which we moved into in 1969. It's location is on a bluff that is inbetween Union (how I miss our mud pit there) and Austin Bluffs. I was a year old when they moved in and Academy Blvd was just a dirt road. My mom drove four miles to get the mail.

But you have apparently failed to understand that a long term vision in Colorado Springs is difficult at best. We have a highly transient population because of our dependancy on the federal government here. As technology changes, also does our population (thinking of DOD contractors like Ratheon and other microwave tech companies that used to be here). Our population fluctuates very much with those companies as well as the military population.

To the best of my knowledge, Powers was not intended to be a highway like say, C-470 and E-470 in Denver but a means to augment the north/south traffic flow. Acquiring land, assuring landowners and homeowners that Powers will not be a super highway has always been a stumbling block in Colorado. By nature, most long-time residents of Colorado are very leary of government land-grabbing. Not to mention that there's a huge "not in my backyard" mentality here.

With that said, the City of Colorado Springs and El Paso County are pretty conservative when it comes to how they decide on the best way to handle growth...in my head it makes sense, perhaps not too much in pixels...I can't explain it well enough.

While I have been to many places in the US (New York, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Houston, Miami, L.A., New Orleans, etc...) nobody's highway and road system is perfect. I've heard that Portland, OR is pretty good but never been there...but I will tell you this (again) that if Colorado Springs and El Paso County with their "Mountain" Metropolitan Transit (Eh, we are on the plains you diggleberries, I still find the "Mountain" silly in their name) were to actually make it feasible for people to use it, the road situation here would not be as stressed.

I also think that in the west, sprawl is a huge problem. Cities that don't have multiple cities contained within it only create more problems with roads. I can't buy clothes unless I drive. I can't get a new appliance unless I drive. I can't do most anything unless I drive. That's where most western cities fail and it's not confined to Colorado Springs. Denver Metro, Ft. Collins, Pueblo, Grand Junction...are all examples of planning departments gone bonkers in the west. I am pretty sure the same is true for Salt Lake City, Boise, Helena, etc...

But one need not look too far to find that, okay it's a 17 or so hour drive, L.A. is where city planning has gone wrong. Even back in the early 80s I remember visiting there and what might take a 30 minute trip from my aunt's house to my grandmother's house in C Springs or Denver might take a good hour.

There is no "perfect" anywhere and it's easy to pinpoint the failures of any city in our nation. But I will stand behind the fact that C Springs has a fluid population, in the late 80s it took a huge hit from the "savings and loan scandal" and our city leaders are less than knowledgable...but that's not because they are dumb, it's because long-term planning here is difficult especially when you consider the varying mayors through our city's history and the unique nature of C Springs and its ties to the federal government. Then you compound that with the State and Feds and tax dollars, it's a mishmash of everything that can be wrong.

Seriously, if you are that passionate about our roads here, please contact our House Rep Doug Lamborn, our Senators, Wayne Allard and Ken Salazar as well as Mister Bill Ritter (our governor) to give the C Springs and other areas more funding for better roads and to help with some kind of planning.

It's not the City Counsil's fault that our population fluctuates as insanely as it does. IIRC, the Feds only gave C Springs and surrounding cities and townships a few years notice this one go around to find out that Ft. Carson will be adding almost 9,000 (I don't have the exact figures) personnel from an army base in Texas. This is a huge stress on Colorado Springs and its current infrastructure. 9,000 doesn't include family members, this is probably closer to 16,000 people. I'm not a statistician nor am I am geographer, nor am I am sociologist but that kind of influx really stresses any medium sized city. It might even stress Denver.

This is the kind of information people forget when it comes to Colorado Springs. I can't stress enough how strange our population changes and it might be an interesting study for those within geography, sociology and other areas that deal with population.

No we aren't perfect but seeing as you live in Oklahoma, perhaps you, as an outsider, can influence the public figures above to make some changes around our wonderful state.

I've said it before and I will say it again, if you aren't part of I-70, tax dollars don't matter in this state. I was saddened by Owens (our previous governor) as he is from C Springs and his lack of attention to our growing and weird population.

WOW, that was long. Sorry. Been one of those days where I just had to glurdge about something other than my goofy personal life in my blog.

Regardless, I may be moving out of C Springs next year but it's near and dear to my heart. Critical things aside, it really is a nice place to live.

[COflower]

BTW, I can get to the airport (COS) from my location in Briargate in less than 20 minutes via Powers. Most of the way it's 45-55 miles an hour and it's 14+ miles.

OH and I can get to DIA (aka DEN - Denver International Airport) in 55 minutes via I-25 (barring no construction) and E-470. Mapquest seems to differ from my experience but yeah...I can get there in short time even on a holiday weekend.

Our roads aren't "that bad" as you contain. Maybe on 24 but otherwise, it's not that bad. If we were another L.A. I guarantee you that it would be another 30 or more minutes.

Oh, as an aside, I prefer DIA as I am afraid of flying and many DIA flights are one way. C Springs airport...not so much.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by COflower

OH and I can get to DIA (aka DEN - Denver International Airport)

Isn't it other way around, DEN (aka DIA...)?

[McGowdog]

Originally Posted by Bobby H

that US-24 should really be expanded to a 6-lane Interstate highway.

You want 6 lanes? What do you think this is, Michigan? We can't get that for I-25 or much of I-70!

Like I said in a previous post, CHECK OUT CALHAN! Now that's how a small town should look! It almost looks like it belongs in Kansas or Missouri. Not your typical Eastern Plains town in Colorado with abandoned farm equipment and stuff rusting outside.

To the OP, a divided road would be nice. That road from Springs to Penrose (24??) is dangerous too.

[Bobby H]

At the very least, US-24 between Colorado Springs and Limon should be a divided four lane highway with at grade intersections. It's absolutely ridiculous for all levels of elected leadership in Colorado to have failed in that regard for so many years.

Regardless of the "ebb and flow" descriptions of population in Colorado Springs, over the last decade I have seen that city only grow and grow by a pretty rapid pace. The current housing market depression is the only thing that has slowed development down at all.

Colorado Springs is a large city (360,000 within the city limits alone and more than 500,000 metro). It is also an affluent city with a median income well above many other cities of similar size. Colorado Springs is also a significant tourism destination. There's a lot of other cities in the United States of similar or much smaller size that have far better highway infrastructure, including more Interstate connections. Colorado Springs is more than worthy enough to justify a direct, modern Interstate highway connection to I-70 in Limon.

Numerous other cities and towns across the US are dependent on the military-industrial economy. Oklahoma City's economy has taken serious hits over the last few years from job losses related to the military, aerospace, auto and telecommunications industries. Regardless of that, during the same period OKC has managed to complete the northern half of the Kilpatrick Turnpike, widen Broadway Extension, widen I-35 and is currently rebuilding I-40 on a new alignment in the downtown area.

Colorado Springs has actually diversified itself a little more away from being very dependent on the military.

So basically, I just don't see any plausible excuse on why roads like US-24 are in such dangerous and inefficient condition.

I'm familiar with some of the grass roots politics against road building in Colorado, with a recent example being the efforts to kill the Front Range Toll Road (a privately owned and operated turnpike running east and parallel to I-25 from Pueblo to Fort Collins). The road itself seems a bit shady in its business dealings. However a LOT of misinformation has been spewing from people campaigning against the road -with the most ridiculous claim being the investors in the toll road were going to use imminent domain to grab ALL the property in a 12-mile wide swath 150 miles long clear from Pueblo to Fort Collins. That's literally many thousands of square miles of valuable real estate. Some are still holding to the paranoid belief despite the fact no toll road has a right of way any more than 200-500 feet wide.

I can only surmise the political and business climate in Colorado and Colorado Springs itself is very polarized, with some well placed individuals just looking to make tons of money at the expense of taxpayers with any efforts of improving infrastructure (or not improving it). There doesn't seem to be much in the way of "the vision thing" and doing things for the greater good of the state. Having good highway infrastructure is vital for many aspects of business from just basic commuting needs, to tourism and effective flow of interstate commerce.

[ditto]

The roads are not just a problem in the Springs, but throughout the state. Colorado is known for having some of the most dangerous roads in the West. Horrible planing, bad architecture, etc. This was one of the first things I noticed after moving here.

[COflower]

Originally Posted by Charles

Isn't it other way around, DEN (aka DIA...)?

I am pretty sure that DEN is the official designation with the FAA but I could be wrong. Seems to be that way on the airline sites.

I forgot, I am 95% sure without looking it up. Have a few airplane pilots in my realm.

[dynimagelv]

Originally Posted by COflower

I am pretty sure that DEN is the official designation with the FAA but I could be wrong. Seems to be that way on the airline sites.

I forgot, I am 95% sure without looking it up. Have a few airplane pilots in my realm.

You are exactly right.....DEN is and has always been the IATA designator for Denver.

DIA is simply the short way of saying Denver International Airport