The closure of I-70 will bring traffic congestion, business to the bypass towns

Closures on Colorado’s major east-west highways this winter have sent drivers on an hours-long detour — bringing more traffic and a welcome boost to alternate routes for some towns and businesses.

In Craig, there was trouble at restaurants and grocery stores. In Guns, the Interstate 70 shutdown has people milling around town or booking motel rooms for overnight stays.

“I’ve talked to a few people (who travel) through our restaurants,” said real estate agent Diana Lawrence, who chairs the Colorado River Valley Chamber’s board of directors. “I haven’t heard any complaints from any businesses.”

Other places on the detour route have seen traffic jams, repeated directions, or drivers speeding down city roads, trying to make up for lost time.

“For the most part, people just go,” said Trudeau Bury, with the Makerere Chamber of Commerce Visitor Center.

The stretch of I-70 that runs through Glenwood Canyon was especially popular in 2010. After the 2020 Grizzly Creek fire left a burn scar, it’s vulnerable to mudslides, where water can seep through the soil — like a raindrop off a car hood — to swallow it.

In late June and late August, I-70 was closed nine times through Glenwood Canyon as state officials prepared for flash flooding or cleared the road after car and truck accidents. That stretch of interstate was completed in 2010. It has been closed 17 times in the summer of 2021, including about a dozen times before a July mudslide that shut down a section of the highway for several weeks to more than 100 drivers overnight. During the winter of 2020, I-70 was closed once for two weeks due to the Grizzly Creek Fire.

During the closure, the recommended route by the Colorado Department of Transportation is from Glenwood Springs to New Castle and Rifle to Maker, Craig and Steamboat Springs and west to Kremmling or Silverthorne. Drivers can head south from Glenwood Springs to Basalt and Aspen and then drive north through Leadville.

During the two weeks the interstate was closed due to the 2020 Grizzly Creek Fire, 12,500 additional vehicles used the northbound and southbound lanes, said Colorado Department of Transportation spokeswoman Elise Thatcher. Right now, most traffic flows north because there is construction on US 50 on the other side.

In Meeker, authorities saw several drivers speeding in the Colorado 13 town. State troopers and the local sheriff’s office assisted in enforcing speed limits. Bury wants more road signs that prompt drivers to slow down or drivers to pull over and see what Meeker has to offer.

“Other than maybe stopping for gas and coffee, it’s not going to make a huge difference to the traffic coming into town,” she said of the I-70 closures.

I-70 closures in Kremling bring long lines of drivers waiting to use the bathroom at the local grocery store. There is more traffic on large sections of Colorado 9 and US 40 where there are no shoulders and no passing lanes. Mayor Grover Pryor is especially concerned about the safety of motorists and bicyclists on these roads.

Greg Fulton, with the Colorado Motor Carriers Association, said the detours add uncertainty and cost to trucking companies and drivers who are forced to take a mandatory 10-hour break after driving for 11 hours.

“When the turnout goes into place, it goes from a one-day trip to a two-day trip,” Fulton said, using the example of a driver who moves goods from Denver to Grand Junction. And with a driver sitting on the West Slope out of hours, it’s not easy to get another truck to take their route because of the ongoing driver shortage, Fulton said.

The closures highlight the need for an alternative to I-70, a critical transportation artery, especially with population growth and future natural disasters in Glenwood Canyon, he said.

While the Department of Transportation is doing a good job and focusing on safety, “the reality is I-70 is the lifeblood of the region and the nation,” Fulton said. “We have to have some kind of reasonable or realistic way to go down Glenwood.”

Elsewhere on the detour, the I-70 closure has boosted local businesses.

Declining oil and gas activity is forcing towns trying to expand their tourism industry to get to know people who normally wouldn’t stop with guns or parachute nearby, said Lawrence, a real estate agent for Rifles. The Department of Transportation will stop interstate traffic on both sides of Rifle and Dotsero a few miles from Glenwood Canyon.

In Craig, the interstate closure has given the city a “huge audience” for the city’s recently revitalized downtown, said Christine Skowronski, host at the Craig Chamber Visitor Center. One of the downsides, she says, is that local roads are not built to handle commercial traffic, causing drivers to divert and cause congestion.

In Steamboat Springs, Scott Engelman, owner of Carl’s Tavern and Truffle Pig, said the I-70 closure will bring a slight boost to business, despite ongoing construction around his establishments and slower-than-usual summer sales overall.

“I’ve also talked to a lot of friends in the industry in Aspen and Vail and Telluride, and they’ve all experienced a little softness this year, compared to last year,” Engelman says.

The opening of international destinations to travel, the strength of the US dollar abroad, inflation and gas prices could have contributed to lower business activity, Engelman said.

A recent crackdown on short-term rentals in Steamboat Springs — including a ballot measure to raise taxes on listings that have made the housing market unaffordable for many workers — may also discourage some travelers, he said.

In the year Closing the interstate in 2022 has brought fewer visitors to the cities overall, reducing traffic congestion in towns like Steamboat Springs and Silverthorne, local officials said.

Department of Transportation maintenance crews are stationed at closures during flooding, allowing them to quickly close the interstate if the weather worsens. During a flash flood warning, stretches of the interstate are closed, the state patrol sweeps the area and motorists are warned to expect extended closures.

Those procedures were in place last summer, but Department of Transportation maintenance crews now have the experience to respond to potential closures, including determining the best placement for portable electronic road signs, CDOT spokeswoman Thatcher said. The department has already scheduled staff this year with standby shifts to keep them from having to cut in emergencies. Staff from other departmental groups, such as engineering, were also on standby for the latter part of the summer.

“We had a really good plan last season that worked so well to the point where we could repeat it this season. But maybe this season we’re more dialed in and we’re doing it over and over again. So we’re a lot smoother,” Thatcher said. But it’s still the same plan.

CDOT has spent $32 million in response to the 2021 mudslide, and reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts are ongoing, spokesman Matthew Enzeo said. The Department of Transportation recently received nearly $10 million from the Federal Highway Administration, which will be used to offset some of the work done in Glenwood Canyon. The department hopes to receive additional funding, Enzo said.

Officials in Glenwood Springs have worked closely with local law enforcement and the state Department of Transportation to develop a plan for closure after the 2020 fire. Commercial river caps in Glenwood Canyon allow them to operate in the canyon under certain conditions, starting with the Grizzly Creek Fire in coordination with state and local authorities. Gregory Cowan, co-owner of Defiance Rafting in Glenwood Canyon, said there have been no severe weather disasters in the canyon this year, making the winter the first full racing season since 2019.

“There were really minimal disruptions in the travel corridor, and for us in Glenwood — that’s huge,” said Cowan, who takes 11,000 to 13,000 people to the river between late April and late September. “I-70 is our lifeline. It’s very important.”

No formal studies have been done on the economic impact of closing I-70 in Glenwood Springs, city spokeswoman Briana Starbuck said. As the city’s sales tax revenue continues to grow year over year, longer closing times are decreasing. Sales tax revenue in September 2021 increased by 18.9% over 2019. It increased 6.18% in August 2021 — when a portion of the interstate is closed — in 2019, she said.

Still, the closures add uncertainty to residents and workers, with roadblocks lengthening their journeys to work or back home. Workers around the gun, including those at construction companies, sometimes return from shifts after midnight because of road closures, Lawrence said.

Leadville City Manager Laurie Simonson was driving from Utah to Denver last summer when she experienced unexpected detours.

Entering Glenwood Canyon from the west, she saw storm clouds on the horizon and a man placing white cones on the highway ahead.

“Are you kidding me? I missed going through the canyon, I don’t know, 1 minute,” she said. After stopping in Aspen for gas and for groceries in Leadville, she arrived in Denver at 1 p.m.

It’s hard to determine how much of Leadville’s increased economic activity stems from drivers bypassing I-70, Simonson said. City sales tax revenue increased from $199,485 in May 2022 to $139,192 in May 2021 and May 2020, which Leadville Mayor Greg Labbe attributed in part to inflation, Leadville’s status as a destination for commuters and a court ruling during the pandemic that allows counties to collect sales tax from online purchases.

“I’m not going to go to a hamburger place and say, ‘You’re buying a hamburger to drive down Colorado?’ Simonson said. “‘Or did you come here because you had a dizzy spell?’