<\/p>\n
A series of winter storms that dumped up to 6 feet of snow over four days in the San Juan Mountains led to several road closures in the region, but receiving up-to-date information of those closures proved difficult during the blizzard.<\/p>\n
The Colorado Department of Transportation maintains several alert systems to give drivers timely updates on road conditions and closures throughout the state, including a travel-information phone number (511), electric signs on the side of the road, a website with real-time information, and email, text and social media notifications.<\/p>\n
But coordinating all the systems can be tricky, said CDOT spokeswoman Nancy Shanks. With a big storm, breakdowns in communication can occur, and travelers sometimes receive unclear or contradictory information, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCDOT certainly can get things wrong,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need to be a well-oiled machine. There are a lot of people dealing with a lot of information. We definitely strive to get it right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last week\u2019s storms led to several intermittent closures on Coal Bank and Molas passes, between Durango and Silverton, as well as Red Mountain Pass, between Silverton and Ouray. On average, 2,300 vehicles travel over Red Mountain Pass daily, but that number is far lower during the winter months. A road-side sign near Durango said Coal Bank and Molas passes were open Christmas night, but a webcam image showed traffic stopped at the base of Coal Bank Pass.<\/p>\n
Similarly, Coal Bank and Molas passes were closed briefly Sunday morning while the agency did avalanche blasting. But the passes were never considered closed; rather, traffic was stopped briefly to allow avalanche work.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we do control work with spot closures, if we think it\u2019s going to be lengthy it will certainly go up on the signs: \u2018Control work, expect delays,\u2019\u201d Shanks said. \u201cBut the alerts are reserved for the big time \u2013 the full-closures \u2013 you-can\u2019t-get-there type of messages.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some of the confusion may be semantics.<\/p>\n
Tweets sent by the highway department said \u201cclosed\u201d for avalanche control work, yet those aren\u2019t posted on road signs or CoTrip.org because they\u2019re not considered full closures.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we\u2019re not fully closing a road, it won\u2019t necessarily be posted on CoTrip,\u201d Shanks said. \u201cThey might be stopped for a half hour.\u201d<\/p>\n
The agency relies on road crews to relay information, which is then fed through one of three control centers across the state. The control centers have the ability to update websites, send notifications and change road signs.<\/p>\n
Snowplow drivers and crew supervisors try to be as communicative as possible, but sometimes they have to deal with the situation on the ground before they can transmit information. But it should never take hours for road closure information to be communicated to the public.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s more, sometimes multiple local agencies decide to shut down a road, as was the case Wednesday on U.S. Highway 160 between Three Springs and Farmington Hill and a section of U.S. Highway 550 from 38th Street to County Road 203. If those agencies don\u2019t notify the state highway department, they go unreported. Also, agencies don\u2019t always know how long a road will be closed. If they expect a short closure, they may not notify CDOT, Shanks said.<\/p>\n
Tommy Wipf, who has lived in Silverton for 40 years, praised CDOT for its speed and efficiency at maintaining mountain passes during the winter. Wipf, who works at the Silverton Chamber of Commerce, said there\u2019s no road he\u2019d rather travel other than U.S. Highway 550 during the winter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve got it pretty much nailed down,\u201d he said. \u201cThey don\u2019t keep the road closed for any longer than they have to.\u201d<\/p>\n
But how is the agency at relaying road-closure information?<\/p>\n
\u201cThey may not get it on CoTrip immediately, but it will get there,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd the 511 number is the same way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
several communications media; sometimes, signals get crossed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":107405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[576,13,414],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-107404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-colorado-department-of-transportation","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-weather"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107404"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=107404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}