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That is not true as highway 50 is a major highway and over 17% of the traffic, outside of Pueblo, is trucks. In fact highway 50 and I-25 is one of the reasons Pueblo gets the large industries that Colorado Springs can not. Don't go by my word look at my links or look up highway 50 to see how important it is.
That is not true as highway 50 is a major highway and over 17% of the traffic, outside of Pueblo, is trucks. In fact highway 50 and I-25 is one of the reasons Pueblo gets the large industries that Colorado Springs can not. Don't go by my word look at my links or look up highway 50 to see how important it is.
Am I missing something here? Is this the same 2-lane road that winds along the Arkansas River and over Monarch Pass? And like the 'Pilgrim' said, it dissappears in Grand Junction. Seems like a helluva way to haul freight. When driving from the west, we only consider it if there's a winter storm beating up on I-70. I have to admit I've never used 50 east of Pueblo though.
From my research Highway 50 is a more important highway then highway 6 especially in Colorado as highway 6 is not a separate highway but is the same road as I-70 while Highway 50 is one of two major east west highways though the state. Colorado even thinks highway 50 is important and that is why they want to make it a 4 lane highway with on and off ramps from Pueblo east to the Kansas state line. Again notice they call it a "coast to coast" highway!
This is from CDOT:
A Vital Roadway for Southeastern Colorado
US 50 is a coast-to-coast highway recognized by the state of Colorado as a vital link in the statewide transportation system. The US 50 corridor between Pueblo and the Kansas State line is approximately 150 miles long and connects four counties and 10 municipalities in Southeastern Colorado.
The link: http://www.coloradodot.info/projects/us50e
Plus other states are making highway 50 4 lanes because of its importance in the movement of commerce. That is just one reason why I am so exited about Pueblo's future. Not because Pueblo is great but because Pueblo has the luck of being located at one of the top two best locations on the front range. Denver has the other one and look what happened to it in the 20th century now as things come together the 21st century appears to be Pueblo's time.
I do agree Hwy. 50 is more important E-W route than Hwy. 6 and a lot of it has to do with how far it is from I-70. While Hwy. 6 is close, Hwy. 50 is far away. There were good points made about going west from Pueblo on Hwy. 50 and how non-ideal it is for commerce. The point does remain though that is you took Hwy. 50 east from Pueblo the first major city you would get to is Kansas City where it meets up with I-70 (well within 15 miles or so of it without touching). Just because Hwy. 50 stays a separate route doesn't mean it is always more efficient.
I show US 6 as lasting 3205 miles and US 50 as lasting 3011 miles.
The main argument I have isn't that Pueblo isn't in a good place (it is) but that it has so far to go to catch Denver (or even Colorado Springs or Aurora) in population that it's hard to fathom it overtaking them when it has to triple, quadruple of more in population. It does have a lot going and I, for one, wouldn't mind living there if the employment situation was right.
That is not true as highway 50 is a major highway and over 17% of the traffic, outside of Pueblo, is trucks. In fact highway 50 and I-25 is one of the reasons Pueblo gets the large industries that Colorado Springs can not. Don't go by my word look at my links or look up highway 50 to see how important it is.
But where are the trucks coming from/going to. At least for cross-country traffic I would wager there isn't a single truck in a given month or even year that comes from Ocean City MD (or to be more fair Washington DC) that took US 50 to get to Pueblo.
Am I missing something here? Is this the same 2-lane road that winds along the Arkansas River and over Monarch Pass? And like the 'Pilgrim' said, it dissappears in Grand Junction. Seems like a helluva way to haul freight. When driving from the west, we only consider it if there's a winter storm beating up on I-70. I have to admit I've never used 50 east of Pueblo though.
Yes you are. You are confusing the size of the road with the importance of the road. Sure highway 50 only has 1 lane in each direction but it is very important of the economy of the state as its one of two major east-west highways. Pueblo is at the cross roads and that is a major reason industries move here. That is why CDOT is in the process of widening it to 4 lanes. Just read the history of the highway to see what I mean:
ONE OF THE LONGEST HIGHWAYS in the United States is Highway 50, which stretches from Ocean City, Maryland, to Sacramento, California, and passes through Washington D.C., Cincinnati, St. Louis, Kansas City, Carson City, Lake Tahoe, and Central Colorado. A sign at Ocean City declares this coast-to-coast highway is 3,073 miles long.
I do agree Hwy. 50 is more important E-W route than Hwy. 6 and a lot of it has to do with how far it is from I-70. While Hwy. 6 is close, Hwy. 50 is far away. There were good points made about going west from Pueblo on Hwy. 50 and how non-ideal it is for commerce. The point does remain though that is you took Hwy. 50 east from Pueblo the first major city you would get to is Kansas City where it meets up with I-70 (well within 15 miles or so of it without touching). Just because Hwy. 50 stays a separate route doesn't mean it is always more efficient.
I show US 6 as lasting 3205 miles and US 50 as lasting 3011 miles.
The main argument I have isn't that Pueblo isn't in a good place (it is) but that it has so far to go to catch Denver (or even Colorado Springs or Aurora) in population that it's hard to fathom it overtaking them when it has to triple, quadruple of more in population. It does have a lot going and I, for one, wouldn't mind living there if the employment situation was right.
Pueblo has to grow a lot before it would catch up to Colorado Springs or Denver and that might never happen but I have talked to a few people who have told me why it will. One of them is my uncle who does not live in Pueblo but is a CEO of a international company. One time when he was here he talked about Pueblo, not from a local perspective but from a corporate perspective. He explained why Pueblo never grew and how it had to deal with Pueblo's image as a "dirty steel town". He said that once the steel industry collapsed it had a short term negative affect on Pueblo but in reality it was the best thing that could of happened. He went on to say now Pueblo is seen as a clean industry town and our advantages over Denver are becoming more noticeable. That will cause more and more companies and large developers to look at Pueblo over Denver in the next 50 years. Thus, he predicted that Pueblo would overtake Denver as the states most populous city in the next 50 to 100 years.
Granted this was just one mans opinion but it made logical sense, especially when he was saying it, and ever since I have been convinced that its only a matter of time before Pueblo has some large scale developments. Then just a year later they are already being proposed so that just confirms for me what he said on what would start to happen. If large scale developments do occur this decade it will be surreal for me as that is something I have wanted for Pueblo all my life.
As far as highway 50. It needs to be 4 lanes from coast to coast so it can handle more traffic all I am saying is highway 50 is a important highway and one of the main reasons Pueblo attracts the large industries, shopping centers and developers that we do.
Last edited by Josseppie; 04-19-2010 at 01:40 AM..
Coast to coast like Hwy 6! 50 hooks up with 6 at Grand Junction to form the I-70 business loop. But then they both get merged back into 70 and continue on west.
So 50 merges into 70 basically. It's nostalgia at best. It's mostly one lane from Pueblo to Holly. When it goes on into Kansas, it becomes a pretty good highway and goes on into Hutchinson and Emporia, but doesn't even go into Wichita and it merges into 35.
So there ya go. The truth about Hwy 50; Grand Junction Colorado to Emporia Kansas. Road sucks. I'd rather drive down to Walsenburg then Trinidad and take 160.
Pueblo will be overtaken by Greeley, Loveland, Longmont, Broomfield, and maybe even Durango one day.
It's the biggest thing in the southeast, but most can get to Colorado Springs just as easy as Pueblo. If you're coming from Texas to Denver, most would just take 287 and bypass Pueblo and Colorado Springs. To compare Colorado Springs or the whole of El Paso County to the Denver Metro would be a joke and when you're leaving Colorado Springs to go south, forgetaboutit! You've left civilization and entered the Reservation.
This is the route of I-70. As you can see it does not extend as far as highway 50!
My point is simple. Colorado has 2 major east - west highways. I-70 and highway 50. That is why Denver and Pueblo are the economic and shopping centers for their part of the state.
Look at my previous posts to see why I think Pueblo will be the largest city some day. However, even if I am wrong and we never become the largest city in the state we will always be the economic and political hub for a 20 county region and that will keep Pueblo standing as a extremely important city in the state.
Last edited by Josseppie; 04-19-2010 at 02:21 AM..
This is the route of I-70. As you can see it does not extend as far as highway 50!
My point is simple. Colorado has 2 major east - west highways. I-70 and highway 50. That is why Denver and Pueblo are the economic and shopping centers for their part of the state.
Look at my previous posts to see why I think Pueblo will be the largest city some day. However, even if I am wrong and we never become the largest city in the state we will always be the economic and political hub for a 20 county region and that will keep Pueblo standing as a extremely important city in the state.
Pueblo will always be important but I don't think it will ever be the largest. Everything you mention about Pueblo can be applied to Denver moreso. Pueblo is at crossroads of I-25 and US 50 but Denver is at crossroads of I-25 & I-70. Denver may not be able to grow as a city but it doesn't have to because it has a very sizeable margin. When I mentioned that Pueblo doesn't have suburbs I mean incorporated cities that surround it. That gives it a big advantage as it doesn't have to compete with other cities for land and development. When you leave Denver and go to Aurora or Lakewood or Englewood you wouldn't necessarily know it except for the signs as there is no break. It is continuous and Pueblo doesn't have this.
In many ways its good Pueblo grew last as we can learn from the mistakes that Denver and Colorado Springs made and in the case of Colorado Springs continue to make. I am a homer but I think Pueblo will be a much better city when our msa is 600,000 people then Colorado Springs is now..
I hope you're right.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Josseppie
I would not say we are clueless but our cities are different. I have been to Europe and there cities are built in a way that works for mass transit. For example Pueblo is 160,000 people and we never have traffic jams unless there is some kind of major accident. Even when Pueblo grows to 250,000 people or even 500,000 people I can't imagine the traffic will be that bad..
Well, you're right. A metro area of 500K people can accommodate sprawl oriented development pretty well. That's why people like sprawl. They like their cars...until the metro area they live in does hit 1,000,000+ people and then they start saying stuff like: "It's too crowded here". "There's too much traffic". The CD boards are full of posts like that. And these people (or their kids) move somewhere else to start the same process all over again....never recognizing the root cause of the problem.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Josseppie
I do agree that Pueblo needs to start the process of planning a mass transit system for when the day comes we need one so they can easily implement it. In fact they have one in the codes for Pueblo Springs but right now with our size and tax base its like a college student saving money for retirement on a 8 dollar a hour job when he can use that money now for a better use then save when he is hopefully making more money once he graduates from college.
I think you've got it backwards. Pueblo is large enough for at least a convenient bus system. But I'll bet it doesn't have one. And development for transit needs to happen as you go along. For example, apartments, condos & townhomes need to be located on transit lines and bus routes. Too often, this type of housing is plunked down in the middle of sububurban neighborhoods, offering high density housing dwellers the worst of both worlds (you still need a car for every trip, but you live in cheaply built housing with no privacy). It's no wonder Americans don't like high density housing and mass transit. It's so badly done here precisely because we think we should wait until a metro area has 1,000,000+ people before doing anything.
And the college student saving money for retirement is also a bad one.
If a college student manages to put away $2500 in a Roth IRA by age 22, he'll have over $72,000 saved by age 67 if he earns a fairly conservative 8%. He'll have $176,000 by age 67 if he's lucky enough to earn 10% (optimistic but certainly not out of the question). I might add that college student might have an easier time saving said $2000 if he lives in an area where car ownership is not an absolute necessity, as it is in many areas.
As you can see this "lack of planning" mindset that plagues America spills over into a lot of things. It's why we're in the debt morass we're in (private and public), why we're so dependent on foreign oil (and why we're whipsawed by spikes in gasoline prices), and why many of us are so stressed out.
Here's the math on those compound interest calculations:
Last edited by mysticaltyger; 06-16-2010 at 10:10 PM..
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