You may have missed CDOT’s low key launch last week of Pegasus vans, kid brothers of Bustang, serving a Denver to Avon route along Interstate-70. The flashy blue and white, 13-passenger vans were being touted as a more attractive, micro-transit alternative to the Bustang behemoths. Making fewer stops and potentially more agile in traffic than over-the-road buses, they are a welcome addition to travel options on Colorado’s central mountain resort corridor. But do not be deceived, they will do very little to relieve the growing congestion that plagues the highway. We’ll get back to that in a minute.

For those of you who may be a little rusty on your Greek mythology, Pegasus was a winged white horse that sprang from the blood spurting on the ground when Medusa (she of the snakes for hair that turned her lovers to stone) was beheaded by Perseus. Bellerophon later rode Pegasus to victory in a battle with the Chimera. During his spare time Pegasus carried bags of thunderbolts for Zeus who was sufficiently pleased with the steed’s loyalty to render him immortal by placing him in the night skies as a constellation. I don’t know what kind of drugs the Greeks were using, but their theology rarely lacks for imagination.

Earlier last week, the I-70 Collaborative Effort discussion group held their first in-person meeting in nearly two years. Its Capacity sub-committee report examines how soon daily gridlock is approaching. Their answer is, “faster than any conceivable traffic management strategies can be implemented.” In fact, average daily vehicle counts may surpass the carrying capacity at the Eisenhower Tunnel as early as 2028 but certainly by 2035. Even if all environmental permitting could be swept aside, a new tunnel bored and the highway expanded to six lanes, not to mention money found to pay for this, congestion would outstrip this added capacity by 2035. In 2040, some form of transit will be needed to accommodate 22% of travelers, or nearly 10,000 cars will have to be turned around.

These estimates are tied to averages, but anyone who regularly drives the corridor recognizes that it is the “spikes” in traffic caused by skiers in winter and weekend recreators in summer when traffic counts jump to 200% to 300% of roadway capacity. Traffic can remain snarled for hours. Bustang was introduced several years ago to offer a twice-daily alternative to driving. Demand caused CDOT to expand its fleet to cope with traffic spikes, but as David Krutsinger, now with the City of Denver and the first CDOT manager of the Bustang service, points out; a fleet of 460 vehicles will be required to accommodate the 22% overflow expected in 2040. Salt Lake City proved it is possible to operate such a convoy (busloads leaving every three minutes) during their Winter Olympics if you dedicate an exclusive lane for them. Using Pegasus vans, you can multiply the vehicle count by a factor of four or five.

Colorado’s mountain attractions are attracting unmanageable crowds. Trailhead parking lots are overflowing, Trails to the top of 14ers have to be rebuilt each season. Resort towns keep expanding their parking lots and local transit circulator systems are a long way from handling the crowds that would arrive on an Automated Guideway System (AGS). An AGS remains a better solution than buses or vans, however. Bustang represents the third attempt to lure drivers out of their cars. Both previous efforts collapsed. Twenty years ago, destination skiers reported that cramming themselves into a van with a dozen strangers was the worst part of their Colorado vacations. In the wake of COVID-19, it’s difficult to imagine this perception has changed.

Bustang and Pegasus fall into the realm of “let’s-pretend government” – drivers are angry and drivers vote, so let’s pretend we’re doing something to solve their problem by alleviating I-70 congestion. The problem for CDOT, of course, is that traffic continues getting worse. This does not go unnoticed. Each bus, when fully loaded, theoretically removes 10 to 12 cars from the road, about 0.0018% of peak-period traffic. Multiply that by 460 and you capture 8.28% while traffic counts are growing as much as 2% annually. Just as climate activists are inclined to advocate an “all of the above” strategy for adopting renewable energy resources, I-70 relief demands the same. Yet in the final analysis, a high-speed, high-capacity AGS is the only real solution, as has been determined in half a dozen studies costing taxpayers more than $50 million dollars.

Trying to select a technology before we figure out how to pay for it is a mistake and waste of time. Colorado’s Pegasus will not prove immortal. It only buys us a little time. We should use that time to figure out who pays and how much – a plan voters must approve.

Miller Hudson is a public affairs consultant and a former Colorado legislator.