![]() “The I-70 Corridor is one of the main drivers of economic benefit for Colorado that supports both internal/external state commerce but also internal and out-of-state recreation travel. “What happens at the Eisenhower/Johnson Memorial Tunnels has huge impacts from Golden to Vail and the enormous volumes of traffic that flow through that area,” Chavez said. He said the twin tunnels are key to the management of highway operations and the linchpin of the corridor. ![]() “We see that when there is a closure anywhere on the corridor with alternate routes quickly becoming congested from the volumes being diverted from I-70.” “The Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnels is a critical facility since the I-70 Corridor is the primary east/west highway in Colorado,” said Patrick Chavez, the coordinator of CDOT’s Statewide Traffic Incident Management Program. It became a more competitive market.”įorty years later, CDOT officials note that the twin tunnels remain a vital part of Colorado transportation and commerce. “It also became a lot easier and cheaper to get goods delivered here. The town of Vail looked at it as a project that would cause more people to come to Vail.” Corridor linchpinĮventually, completion of the Eisenhower and Johnson Memorial Tunnels meant that more Denver-area dwellers invested in second homes in the Vail Valley because they could more easily visit the area, Lapin said. “Everyone around Vail was very supportive of it (the tunnel construction). “On the East Coast, the rule of thumb is for a ski area to make it, it has to be located within two hours of a major metropolitan area,” Lapin said. But it wasn’t until the twin tunnels opened that all the pieces were in place to easily get to the resort town. Vail Pass dates back to the 1940s and the roadway was upgraded to four-lane I-70 in 1978. As motorists know, there are two major I-70 features that pave the way to Eagle County. For Vail, it meant more people could reasonably access its famed slopes. When you lived here, you would make a trip every two to four weeks to go to Denver to get what you needed to buy,” Lapin said.Ĭutting two hours off the trip time was a game-changer in both directions. “It used to take four hours to get to Vail. Before the twin tunnels opened, motorists had to travel two-lane Loveland Pass to cross the Continental Divide. ![]() But that number doesn’t really measure the impact. ![]() For Lapin, I-70 defined that path.īy the numbers, the Eisenhower and Johnson tunnels cut 9.1 miles from the trip to and from Denver. In his case, that business involved accumulating land and doing land partnerships for properties in the path of development. It was one of the elements that told me there was a potential business for me.” I knew the tunnel project would make Vail more popular. “It made me realize that the trip to Denver would only take an hour and a half or two hours. “It was one of the things that kept me in Vail,” Lapin said. He staked his financial future on the project. The legacy of the Eisenhower and Johnson Memorial Tunnels is very personal for Merv Lapin of Vail. “If we were down to two lanes now, with the traffic we have, it could take a week to get down to Denver.” Two-hour rule “When you look at today’s traffic, I don’t know what we would do without the tunnels,” said Kent Rose, who moved to Vail back in 1972 to take the job as the town’s engineer.
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