{"id":71088,"date":"2016-11-12T01:59:01","date_gmt":"2016-11-12T08:59:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/delays-on-u-s-491-frustrate-cortez-businesses\/"},"modified":"2016-11-12T08:59:01","modified_gmt":"2016-11-12T08:59:01","slug":"delays-on-u-s-491-frustrate-cortez-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/delays-on-u-s-491-frustrate-cortez-businesses\/","title":{"rendered":"Delays on U.S. 491 frustrate Cortez businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Lebanon
Lebanon Road has been closed since late October as part of the U.S. Highway 491 construction project.<\/span>Sam Green\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

As a state highway project that began this summer threatens to continue through Thanksgiving, some Cortez business owners are growing impatient.<\/p>\n

U.S. Highway 491 and the surrounding area in Cortez has been under construction since early June, as the Colorado Department of Transportation repaves the road and installs utilities. The intersection between the highway and Lebanon Road has been closed since early October, cutting off easy access to several businesses. While CDOT\u2019s website originally estimated the road would be open by Oct. 26, a water main break and other issues have delayed the project, and it is now predicted to last into late November.<\/p>\n

The Herbal Alternative, a marijuana store on U.S. 491, had to open a new back entrance in October to remain accessible to customers. But general manager Oliver Scott-Tomlin estimated the construction has still cost his store as much as 70 percent of its weekly revenue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really rely on people being able to find us and being able to get to us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Scott-Tomlin said he has called the company in charge of the repaving project, Lawson Construction, numerous times to find out when Lebanon will reopen, but is given a later deadline every time. He feels \u201cthere\u2019s no end in sight,\u201d and believes the company isn\u2019t being held accountable for the delays.<\/p>\n

According to Lawson Construction\u2019s recorded hotline, Lebanon was scheduled to reopen on Nov. 12 as of Thursday. But the company\u2019s owner, Ken Lawson, said it would probably take about two weeks to open. He blamed the delays on a major water line break that occurred near the highway in mid-October and slowed down the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt hasn\u2019t been fun,\u201d Lawson said. \u201cEverything just accumulated to cause these delays.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of the project involves straightening out Lebanon Road so that it intersects with the highway perpendicularly. That means several of the road\u2019s utilities, like fiber optic cables and drainage systems, needed to be relocated. Lawson said the city\u2019s utility companies, which were responsible for some of those relocations, took longer than expected \u201cto get everything in order\u201d at the beginning of the project. But he hopes, weather permitting, to have Lebanon Road opened, as well as two full lanes of traffic running on the highway, by Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n

CDOT\u2019s Region 5 communications director, Lisa Schwantes, was even less optimistic about re-opening Lebanon Road. She said that, although construction workers are \u201cpushing hard\u201d to get the intersection re-paved before cold weather sets in, she doesn\u2019t know when the project will be completed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith these projects, the big unknown is always what\u2019s under the ground,\u201d Schwantes said. \u201cWhen they started digging for this project, they found some very complicated things \u2026 it has been much more complicated than we anticipated.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said construction crews will be working Saturdays throughout November in order to beat the cold weather, although there are stipulations in their contracts that require them to take certain days off, especially during the week of Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n

The Herbal Alternative, along with other bars and dispensaries in the area, is especially affected by the construction because it gets most of its revenue from walk-in traffic. Other businesses along the highway aren\u2019t experiencing the same losses. Donna Livengood, who owns the music store Rocky Mountain One-Stop, said the construction has, if anything, helped her business.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt slows down traffic enough for people to notice us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The main entrance to Livengood\u2019s store is blocked by barricades and vehicles, but she just advises customers to use the back entrance instead. She knew the repaving project was coming when she moved into the space a few years ago, and designed the back entrance specifically with highway construction in mind.<\/p>\n

But not every building along the highway has an easily accessible back entrance. Hospice of Montezuma, also located on U.S. 491, has had its driveway blocked for about three weeks. Executive director Wendy Weygandt said \u201cit\u2019s been a long process,\u201d and she\u2019ll be glad when traffic loosens up again. But her work at the hospice hasn\u2019t been greatly affected, since most of it is done in people\u2019s homes rather than the Cortez headquarters. Weygandt said that, although construction has been an inconvenience for many hospice staff, she\u2019s not too worried about Lawson Construction\u2019s delays.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have been responsive,\u201d she said. \u201cI know they have a job to do, and they\u2019re trying to work with us to get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n

An unrelated CDOT project in Montezuma County, involving repairs on the Narraguinnep canal bridge on Highway 184, also faced delays in early November. The stretch of road between mile markers 1.2 and 1.4 faced lane closures from Oct. 30 through Nov. 11. The construction, which was supposed to last a week, was delayed first by rain and then by equipment failure, but CDOT\u2019s website announced it was open by 5 p.m. on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Highway 491 project leave business owners anxious<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71089,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,13,1685],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-71088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-road-work-and-conditions"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71088","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=71088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71088"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=71088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}