Dear Action Line: I’m concerned about the recently repaved and restriped area on U.S. Highway 550 between County Road 250 near the top of Shalona Hill and the turnoff to Rockwood. While there is now a very generous shoulder heading southbound, there is only a very narrow strip northbound. In some areas the shoulder literally disappears. Many bicyclists use that highway, and this is a tragedy waiting to happen. Northbound bikers will be forced to use the right-hand vehicle lane. Drivers coming around the curve at 60 mph will have little warning before reaching the cyclist(s). Please ask CDOT what their logic was to create such a hazardous situation. – Larry Gross
Dear Larry: Action Line received two inquiries about the narrow shoulders here, as well as a more generic email about an overall lack of such shoulders “on many of our state highways and county roads.”
Also in recent emails was a thrilling message saying, “The (London-based) PR firm I run has opportunities for you to be featured with FOX and USA Today.” Sounds totally legit, right? Action Line was over-the-moon excited – the break we’ve been looking for! – until noticing it was intended for someone named Charlene. Rats.
The paving and restriping were done in late July. The first email about this situation came in August. It is now November. So, what we’ve learned here today is that Action Line is lazy, and probably doesn’t even deserve that big break.
After moping around about that near-miss with stardom, Action Line finally did contact the Colorado Department of Transportation.
CDOT communications specialist Adair Christensen, after consulting with maintenance crews as well as traffic and safety engineers, filled in the gaps for us on filling in potholes and cracks.
“After the new layer of asphalt was added, our striping crews came in and painted the highway lines,” she said. “We had all the intentions of laying down the same striping that was there before the paving job, however, it did take a few tries! The white striping along the shoulder of the highway now matches up to the old striping. The shoulder width is back to where it has been for the last two decades. … It does meet highway standards.”
The last major resurfacing project on this stretch occurred almost 20 years ago, Christensen said, and because it was so long ago, “We can only speculate why the shoulders on either side … are not equal in width.”
CDOT looks to the “Green Book” – a manual on designing highways and streets – for guidance on shoulder widths. More recent CDOT highway projects typically have wider shoulders; for example, the newer section of U.S. 550 south of Durango now has 8-foot-wide shoulders, Christensen said.
She jokingly speculated that maybe earlier highway engineers had a little more of a rebellious nature, looking to the Green Book as “more what you’d call guidelines rather than steadfast rules.” With the addition of a southbound passing lane 20 years ago, it was decided to keep the original centerline. That allowed a wider shoulder on only one side of the highway, “which helps vehicles on the decline find refuge for emergency situations like failed brakes when coming off the mountain pass.”
A major project to redesign that stretch is not in the plans for at least several years, she added. That’s the stage when shoulders could be realigned.
Sigh …
Oops. You didn’t hear that, did you?
Well, it appears we are not finished with the right-of-way question, and the ongoing battle among vehicles, pedestrians and bicycles.
Now, in the most recent development, the drivers want to have their say. One driver even took Action Line to the woodshed for failing to emphasize that pedestrians need to know the rules of the road too. This all stemmed from an Action Line column last month about how the light sequence works at the pedestrian crossing at 12th Street and Camino del Rio.
“Jaywalking is dangerous, foolish and also illegal,” said Walker N. Driver. “Shame on you for not pointing this out in your column! We have a lot of people walking around this town that don’t know the rules. ‘The pedestrian always has the right of way’ is not an adage or a maxim as it is not wise. Rather it is a saying that gets people killed.”
Another reader said: “Even though pedestrians have the right-of-way, isn’t it curious how many don’t look to check if there’s any cars that might, just possibly, not notice that the pedestrian is crossing ...”
Action Line was basically trying to say specifically that pedestrians have the right-of-way when the red light is flashing at this crosswalk. And the story emphasized that when pedestrians are getting hit along Camino del Rio, they’re not in crosswalks.
Bottom line: Action Line is going to great lengths to emphasize that no matter how dumb pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists are, it is morally wrong to do anything but your best to avoid hitting them. Drivers have a legal responsibility to drive under control and not hit people, and can be held accountable for damages when shirking this responsibility.
But yes, jaywalking is illegal most everywhere (Denver recently decriminalized it, as have a couple of states), and is punishable in Colorado by a $100 fine.
Action Line has taken a previously unspoken vow to not drive like an idiot, and always prioritize the safety of pedestrians, bicyclists, animals, visible lizards and even the growing number of motorcyclists cutting into the oncoming lane on mountain roads, above his own.
Email questions and suggestions to actionline@durangoherald.com or mail them to Action Line, The Durango Herald, 1275 Main Ave., Durango, CO 81301. The “Green Book” is a 1,048-page tome. It looks spellbinding, and Action Line plans to get on it after reading Cicero and the full works of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky.
