The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Equipment staging and one lane traffic begin March 7
[ By Katherine Nettles ]
It’s almost construction season again, and the days of unrestricted two-way vehicular access between Gunnison and Montrose through the Little Blue Creek Canyon are numbered. The U.S. Highway 50 safety improvement project will resume light roadway work this month after taking a winter hiatus, and officials say that occasional alternating one-way traffic should be expected beginning March 7 as the project restarts. However, there will be no nighttime closures through March 31.
The periodic single lane closures will enable the project team to get equipment staged and the area ready for construction again. Scheduled road closures, including nighttime closures, are expected to resume in April if winter weather conditions subside.
“This project schedule is almost completely dependent on weather,” explains Mavis Fitzgerald with the public relations firm PRS representing the project. According to the firm, the timing of the project resuming was chosen with the spring storm cycles and the end of winter conditions in mind.
A longer-term schedule of roadway closures and nighttime closures is still in the works as the U.S. Department of Transportation and CDOT finalize their 2022 construction schedule.
