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The O. Zone: Please bury I-70 burial plan while resurrecting rail
Burying or tunneling Interstate 70 through Vail was in the news again last week, cropping up with the periodic frequencyof the equally fantastical proposals for hyperloop pods or Advanced Guideway System (AGS) high-speed transit connecting Denver International and Eagle County Regional airports along I-70.
The price tag for burying or tunneling I-70 through Vail, thereby eliminating vehicle noise and creating buildable land atop the interstate? A cool $8 billion or so, with commercial and residential development covering about 20% of the construction, or around $1.6 billion. Still, the overall cost is only about half of the $15 billion AGS fantasy (in 2014 dollars).
So what realistic solutions don’t cost billions but maybe instead “just” hundreds of millions that would take some pressure off I-70 – a geographically constrained interstate perilously positioned atop two 10,000-plus-foot mountain passes that seems to be constantly closed down by car fires, jack-knifed semis, weather-related pileups, idiotic driving and just plain population growth?
The recently formed Western Rail Coalition argues revived passenger rail service on the out-of-service Tennessee Pass Rail line along I-70 through Eagle County would come in far below half a billion, linking Glenwood Springs and Leadville and serving the Eagle County Regional Airport (EGE). Read the WRC’s letter to state officials here.
Just connecting the airport to the Avon Station transit hub and nearby Westin Riverfront gondola up to Beaver Creek by the same rail line would cost an estimated $200 million to $250 million, with about $50 million to $80 million of that going toward a fleet of sleek, relatively quiet modern trains. That’s still a hell of a lot of money in an increasingly cash-strapped state, but it’s not billions.
Compare the rail costs to the $325 million the state is spending on the I-70 West Vail Pass Auxiliary Lanes – a project now on pause for the winter. We should all be grateful for those badly needed road improvements, but given the swelling population of Colorado, the commiserate increase in truck traffic, and the utter lack of basic driving skills these days, an extra passing lane or paid express lane here and there really is a mere Band-Aid on a badly broken highway system.
As I wrote late last year, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) has only been able to increase lane miles (basically road capacity) 2.6% between 1990 and 2023. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Colorado’s population during that time has increased from 3,304,000 to an estimated 2023 population of 5,913,000, or 78.8%. If I-70 seems broken, that’s why.
And as Chris Romer, president and CEO of the Vail Valley Partnership chamber of commerce, wrote on Facebook recently, “… driving to and/or from Denver gives me all the (negative, bad, dumb) feelings.” That comment led to an interesting string of responses from frustrated drivers.
It’s a mere 117.9 miles from Vail to Denver International Airport, but altitude, weather and swelling traffic that’s no longer seasonal – including more and more ill-equipped and poorly driven commercial trucks – can conspire to make it a four, five or even six-hour drive.
News flash: Just as I-70 through Vail will never be buried or tunneled to create the peaceful faux-Swiss village Vail founder Pete Seibert first envisioned (sans interstate, which he opposed), CDOT will not be able to pave its way out of the I-70 mess from Vail to Denver. Instead, we should be looking to the west.
Nearly 120 often-impassable miles from Vail to DIA? How about just 35.3 usually passable miles from Vail to the steadily growing Eagle County Regional Airport, with an out-of-service and reportedly still in pretty good shape railroad track right next to our sometimes-gridlocked stretch of I-70?
With more than 50 miles of the ECO Trails recreation trail system through Eagle County already completed (and just 12 more still in the works), the 90s notion of rails to trails for the dormant Tennessee Pass Line is not happening, especially because the owner of the rail line, Union Pacific, could lose the line to a competitor if it officially seeks to abandon the line.
Instead of rails to trails, we should all get onboard with wings to rails and a truly unique ski train serving our booming local airport that’s again pushing ahead with adding an international terminal for direct flights from Latin America, Canada and other markets.
Rather than obsessing over connecting to DIA, let’s look to the west, where there are no major mountain passes on the 146.6 miles between Vail and the Grand Junction Regional Airport (Walker Field), which also happens to be very near the active rail line from Denver to Utah that passes right through Eagle County at Dotsero (just 11 miles from our local airport).
Dotsero is where that active Moffat Subdivision (aka Central Corridor) rail line connects with the inactive Tennessee Pass Line. There are now several state funding sources to pay for passenger rail and incentivize denser housing near multi-modal transportation hubs, so envision a ski/commuter train from Dotsero to our airport in Gypsum to Eagle to Wolcott to Edwards to Avon, replete with housing hubs, commercial cores and bus stations (although I can already hear our NIMBY local realtor interests battling both trains and non-trophy homes for locals).
If at a later date, the state and other local jurisdictions see the success of the EGE-to-Avon project and – motivated by FOMO or just plain common sense – want to hop onboard (sorry, I can’t stop myself on the railroad puns) – then by all means add on at a later date.
For instance, if Minturn decides to return to the railroad roots proudly displayed on its signs driving into town, they could seek a rail extension with obvious development potential in the Union Pacific railyards near where the town leases its parking from UP. At the very least they’d have a seat at the table as the suddenly communicative rail giant looks to get federal approval for its passenger lease on the line with Rio Grande Pacific. Maybe UP would even be open to a bypass road to ease traffic on Main Street (aka Highway 6 & 24 … aka the Leadville 500).
Or, they can just change their signs to ICE-powered Mercedes Sprinter vans instead of trains.
The Town of Vail might be so impressed by the airport-to-Avon ski/commuter train that they pony up the estimated half a billion for a brand-new rail extension up the final 4.7 miles from Dowd Junction to the Vail Transportation Center. Maybe they even pay to finally move the Holy Cross Ranger District station for a housing, commercial hub, park-and-ride, train and bus station (still with unlimited ski access on my favorite skinning hill) at Meadow Mountain. If Minturn plays along, they could annex such a development for badly needed sales tax revenues.
No matter how much all of that costs, it would definitely come in at a fraction of the $8 billion I-70 burial boondoggle and would likely take a lot of local traffic off I-70 while greatly easing the need for more parking structures and frontage road parking in Vail. Besides, look at how long it’s taken CDOT to redo one roundabout by Walmart (far longer than fast-tracked Arrowhead’s … hmm), and then imagine them putting I-70 into a huge tunnel through Vail.
Might as well bury all of us along with the highway.
Anyway, at least put trains in the Vail transit master plan (where the undead burial idea lives zombie-like forever) because a true ski/commuter train connected to our local airport and possibly even on downriver to Grand Junction (the state’s third largest airport) would be a real tourism draw.
One you’d think Vail Resorts could get behind given its chief competitor is all in on ski trains to Winter Park and Steamboat (even if VR does own a van service to DIA).
Editor’s note: The O. Zone is a recurring opinion column by RealVail.com publisher David O. Williams. Please read how you can help support this site by considering a donation or signing up for news alerts … or both.
David O. Williams
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