PERRY: The fix for the mountain I-70 parking lot is easy, finding the guts to do it will be hard

In case you missed it, the gates of hell opened up on I-70 last week.
If you were there, you know that Monday Dec. 22, 2014 was one of the worst I-70 mountain corridor commuter days in state history. Was it one of the worst winter storms? No. Was it unexpected? No. Was it a disaster? Oy.

I ran for the powder. What is normally about 14,000 other fools. A 52-minute drive from my front door to the parking lot at Loveland Basin was a four-and one-half-hour odyssey that will keep me and other thousands in therapy for years to come.

I left my house at 7:55 a.m. knowing full well that it was snowing hard from Georgetown to the Loveland tunnels, and that Loveland Pass was closed because of heavy snow. On busy ski weekends, you can expect to sit in your car for an interminable hour crawling from Silver Plume to Exit 216, a jaunt that usually takes about 15 minutes. But that frustrating hour is instantly washed away and well worth it during your first shin-deep run. It’s a heavy price I gladly pay, some of you know what I mean.

But that stretch is where I spent almost 4 hours of my life that I will never get back. Four hours to travel 13 miles. Four hours with a full bladder, high expectations and no clue as to what was going on.

Nothing would make me happier than to rake Colorado Department of Transportation officials and employees over the coals for creating an event that changed my life and that of tens of thousands of others, and not in a good way. I-70 became a ravaged parking lot from the the Ike tunnels all the way to Idaho Springs and beyond. For hours. Sometimes in both directions. And do you know what CDOT told people at the height of this disaster at about noon?

“I70 West Denver to Eisenhower Tunnel,one hour+ delays continue,volume & snow,blowing snow,” said the tweet. That’s it. They later said it was 90-minute delays. “Delays.” Are you freaking kidding me? If this happened anywhere else in the country, it would be top national news. And that’s the problem. The traffic situation has gotten so out of hand on the I-70 corridor, that it barely makes the local news. After I-70 was shut down for the umpteenth time that day, around 4 p.m., TV stations started reporting that CDOT was “discouraging” traffic into the hills on I-70.

CDOT should have been begging TV and radio stations to tell people to go home. Stay home. Go to Eldora. Go anywhere but I-70, because you weren’t going anywhere.

And the next day? It was about the same.

And we’re OK with this? I am not. This isn’t about 15 percent of the drivers on the road with bad tires. This isn’t about staying late for dinner to avoid the crush. This is about way, way, way too many cars for way, way, way too little road. And on that particular snowy day, it was about cars and drivers that had no freaking business behind the wheel of a car.

Here’s the deal, Colorado. We’re collectively too cheap and too stupid to spend the money needed to really make I-70 passable on clear and snowy days to feed the state’s multi-billion-dollar ski and summer tourism industry. So here’s the cheap way out:

1. No semi-truck trailers on I-70 between Morrison and Vail on serious snow days and/or when traffic counts at the tunnel will surpass 25,000 cars. Too goddam bad. Get a room. Go around to Wyoming. But I have seen my last dork-brain jackknife his rig because he or she doesn’t have the gray matter to drive a go-cart, let alone a semi on the toughest highway in America.

2. No two-wheel cars on real snow days without chains. Oh, shut up. You people are idiots, and you know who you are mister-Arizona-nut-case-in-a-freaking-Ford-Mustang. That’s the rules. Get a clue or get a ride with someone who has one.

3. If bald tires are really the problem that CDOT thinks they are, end it. Impose a $1,000 fine against treadless, brainless fools caught on I-70 during a snow storm. Make it $2,000 if they’re from anywhere east of Kansas.

And if that doesn’t work?

4. On weekends or real powder days (more than a foot of freshy at more than three I-70 ski areas) it’s odd-last-number license plates followed by even ones on the next powder day from 2 a.m. until 7 p.m. Yeah? Too bad. Find someone with the right-numbered plate and catch a ride.

And if that doesn’t work? Impose tolls until the problem’s solved. Because then, with needed cash, the problem is solved.

Reach editor Dave Perry at 303-750-7555 or dperry@aurorasentinel.com.