Commute Time to DIA ? (Fort Collins, Longmont: live, costs, estimate)

[rjs]

Question for those that travel frequently out of DIA.
Whats the average Summer and winter commute times to DIA considering Sunday departures. Thx

[tfox]

Assuming there's no significant amount of snow, I've found it takes pretty consistently about 75 minutes to get to DIA from south-central FC, IF you use the E-470 toll road. (It's about 65 minutes once you're actually on I-25 past Harmony Rd). The toll road costs about $4.00 or so in tolls, but for making a flight it's really a no brainer since it's guaranteed to be free of traffic. To save time, you should definitely get the Expresstoll transponder for your car.

You can get a little traffic between Mile Marker 240 (Longmont exit) and E-470 (Mile Marker 228), but it's really only after the E-470 interchange that things start to get really congested. Anyway, on a Sunday you won't have to worry so much about that.

Of course, if it's after a heavy snowfall then all bets are off, better allow several hours at that point. But we really only see that about 4-5 times per winter, sometimes less. I-25 and E-470 are both cleared very quickly after snowfall, so once the snow stops falling, everything's back to normal within a few hours.

[rjs]

Thank you.

[esya]

I think that estimate seems terrifically optimistic given the realities of traffic congestion some times. The return certainly would not be as short on any other day of the week. But then I drive the speed limit which almost no one does.

[-RAC-]

I once made to DIA in under 30 minutes. It also once took 3 hours to get there during a March blizzard a few years ago. My plane was the last flight out but I made it out.

[wxjay]

When I lived in Fort Collins (3 years ago), I could make it from Drake & Shields to the USA Parking area in about 65 minutes. I would take Drake all the way east to the end, south on Ziegler, east on Harmony, and then 75-85 MPH on I-25/E-470 to make it there.

[rjs]

Got it, thread can be closed.