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Your Morning News - December 26th, 2014

Heavy Traffic on I-70 Expected Today

For residents and visitors using Interstate 70 today, officials are asking travelers to prepare for even more traffic than usual. The Colorado Department of Transportation says the day after Christmas last year was especially busy, along with the Saturday after as well. Traffic counts in the Eisenhower tunnel between Glenwood Springs and Denver peaked at more than 26,000 vehicles heading westbound. The resort booking company Stay Aspen Snowmass says today begins the busiest stretch of the winter holiday in the Upper Valley.

Air Quality Monitoring Coming to Glenwood Springs

New air quality data could be on the horizon for Glenwood Springs. Garfield County is looking at moving air monitoring equipment from Battlement Mesa to a location in Glenwood Springs.

Glenwood hasn’t been monitored for several years, and the idea is to better understand how clean the air is at the intersection of the Roaring Fork and Colorado Rivers. It’s also to get baseline data before construction for a new Grand Avenue Bridge begins. Josh Williams is Environmental Health Manager for Garfield County.

“It’s mainly to determine what’s in the air, determine quantities, any pollutants in the air, and then also to compare existing conditions versus over time.”

That’s to catch any growing sources of pollution in the County. Williams says the plan is not to get data in order to specifically compare to pollution before and after a new Grand Avenue Bridge.

Traffic Fines in Wildlife Zone Changes

Drivers on Highway 82 no longer face double fines for speeding at night on a certain stretch west of Aspen. That’s because it was considered a wildlife zone by the Colorado Department of Transportation. But, now those zones have been put on hold.

The agency put up signs and new rules statewide in 2012, designed to prevent accidents with deer, elk, and other wildlife. But C-DOT recently released new information showing those measures hadn’t made much of a difference and, in some cases, they have flat out failed. Zane Znamenacek is a Traffic & Safety Engineer. He says the zone on Highway 82 was about five miles long and just downvalley of Aspen’s Airport.

“That area there showed about a five percent reduction over about a three year study period. So you think five percent, maybe that’s significant--it’s really not significant, that was only a difference of three accidents.”

The effort did make a difference on a section of Highway 13, between Rifle and Meeker. Znamenacek says it’s possible the program could start up again, depending on what state lawmakers and officials decide in the coming months.

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