Vail Pass I-70 eastbound lanes through the Narrows probably won’t be finished anytime soon
Costs have skyrocketed by 25% since 2020
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If you think your grocery bill’s gone up, try pricing out a four-year-old government contract.
In a Monday presentation to the Eagle 久久热精品视频app Board of Commissioners, officials from the Colorado Department of Transportation discussed current cuts to plans to improve Interstate 70 over Vail Pass.
Program engineer Karen Berdoulay told the commissioners that pieces that have been completed so far are primarily on the westbound side, including runaway truck ramps, reconstructing a curve and a bridge. An automated closure system for the westbound lanes is also complete.
But plans to rebuild 5 miles of eastbound highway, including rebuilding a bridge, adding 5 miles of a third lane and smoothing curves in the highway’s infamous Narrows section have hit funding problems.
Berdoulay said the project currently has enough funding to build 2.7 miles of a third lane, as well as five wildlife crossings.
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But, she added, the project isn’t able to move forward in the Narrows, or able to put in shoulder pullouts.
The problem is cost inflation, which Commissioner Matt Scherr noted has outpaced consumer inflation.
“That’s a huge issue for us up there,” he said.
Berdoulay noted that when the project was bid in 2020, annual cost increases of roughly 3.5% were factored into the estimates. Instead, costs have shot up by roughly 25%, she said. Despite some “value engineering” 鈥� including redesigning the eastbound bridge to make it shorter than originally designed 鈥� there’s now roughly $89 million in added cost for the project.
“We’ve made so much investment, but we’re taking a pause,” Berdoulay said. “We don’t have the funding for the last phase.”
That pause comes despite pressure from local governments in Eagle 久久热精品视频app to complete the project as designed.
A March letter from the Vail Town Council to Gov. Jared Polis and CDOT Director Shoshana Lew expressed “strong concern and disappointment” with the project’s change in scope.
During Monday’s meeting, Vail Public Works Director Greg Hall noted that finishing the project will take a “significant amount of money.” But, he added, there are concerns about taking money from other projects. Finishing Vail Pass shouldn’t come at the detriment of other projects, he said.
Jason Smith, the Regional Transportation Director for CDOT’s Region 3, the geographically largest in the state, noted the size of the challenge for the Vail Pass project.
“This is bigger than a regional project,” he said. But, he added, the added funding is more than he’s able to pull into it.
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“We all see the value in it,” Smith said. “But it’s a matter of how do we get it there.”
Scherr noted that funding highway and other infrastructure projects is ultimately up to the state’s voters to decide whether or not to tax themselves to pay for those 久久热精品视频app.
“We in the public have to realize that’s our decision,” Scherr said.
