There were recent reports that three Internet-based carpooling apps will soon be available to Front Range skiers. These are the creations of millennial gearheads searching for a magic bullet to help resolve peak period congestion along the I-70 mountain corridor. While every program that removes traffic, however slightly, is surely welcome, newcomers to this dilemma tend to fall victim to commonly held myths regarding the nature of this mobility challenge. Ironically, these entrepreneurs found themselves stumbling over the pirates at Uber and Lyft who believe every ride shared should pass through their toll booths. Summer and winter weekend gridlock first emerged as a problem more than 30 years ago. Corridor residents and Front Range travelers desiring to access Colorado’s central mountain recreational areas have continuously expressed their mounting frustration for decades.

The Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) has conducted a half dozen I-70 studies, beginning with a 1995 Major Impact Study. They each reached the same conclusion: that there is no highway-based expansion or lane tinkering that can accommodate the traffic “spikes” that often exceed highway capacity by 300-500%. Only an advanced guideway monorail system (AGS) offers the promise of reduced congestion. I suspect the current app developers will be disappointed in the response they receive. While there may be a few more vehicles with just one or two occupants during the coming ski season, at least in part because of COVID concerns, I-70 surveys have repeatedly found that the average peak period occupancy exceeds three passengers per vehicle. In other words, at least half the cars traveling on the highway are already carrying four skiers.

Together with the myth of the single driver is the assumption that commercial vans and trucks contribute to peak period congestion. Wrong again. Fewer than 3% of traffic represents commercial vehicles during heavily trafficked periods. They’re smarter than that. Just a month before COVID reached Colorado in early 2020, a pair of op-ed columns appeared in the local media, one advocating conventional rail service and the other a fleet of high-performance buses. Alas, conventional steel wheel-on-steel rail technology cannot climb the five stretches of 7% grades of more than 5 miles in length, requiring 50 miles of tunnels. And three previous attempts to make bus service attractive have all failed to attract adequate ridership. CDOT’s Bustang service only serves a few hundred riders daily while 50,000 cars pass through the Eisenhower tunnel each weekend.

Interest in a vast expansion of micro-transit (shuttle van) service has also been advanced as a potential remedy. This has received support despite the fact that existing van services connecting DIA with our mountain ski areas are reporting falling ridership as tourists think twice about spending three hours masked in a van with strangers of unknowable vaccination status. In fact, the presumed rise in single or double occupancy vehicles must be, in part, a response to the inherent risk of a lengthy confinement in a van. Consequently, the demand for rental vehicles is climbing and it seems likely there will be shortages this winter as congestion grows worse.

For 20 years corridor residents, meeting as the I-70 Coalition, have remained committed to the AGS as the preferred alternative for relieving weekend congestion since it is the only solution that offers sufficient capacity to safeguard their quality of life. Unfortunately, the temptation always exists to simply widen the highway, resulting in a six-lane parking lot replacing the current four lane gridlock. Cost curves have crossed in recent years and this non-solution now prices out at more than an elevated monorail. The construction of a wider highway would represent a surrender to the past, not a realistic embrace of our future. It’s not corridor residents who have created the need for additional roadway capacity, nor do they possess the economic muscle to finance a system on their own. This is a statewide obligation.

Weekend gridlock on I-70 is more than an inconvenience for residents living alongside the highway. Their enforced isolation is reflected in the droll joke they share as they stare out at the cars creeping past them, “Pray you don’t face a medical emergency on a Sunday afternoon!” The Colorado legislature has taken steps to explore the feasibility of a Front Range Rail connection between Fort Collins and Pueblo. This conversation should not occur without a parallel evaluation of an I-70 monorail service that intersects with the proposed Front Range rail service.

These paired projects are certain to prove synergistic, improving ridership on both systems. Colorado’s projected TABOR surpluses during the next few years would prove more than enough to complete a Front Range construction phase and be a better use of these dollars than their distribution in millions of small, annual refunds. If asked, voters just might agree.