This weekend was a tale of polar weather – and polar opposites – on the I-70 mountain corridor.
On Friday, March 6, as Summit County was hammered by over a foot of snow, traffic plummeted at the Eisenhower-Johnson tunnels. Traffic fell to its lowest point since December with 30,364 vehicles in both directions. Eastbound traffic alone barely broke 11,000 cars.
Writes one Krystal 93 listener on our Facebook page, recapping a day on the road, “I fly back from Tokyo to Seattle in nine hours. And it took me nine hours to get from Vail to the airport in Denver.”
By Sunday, March 8, when the skies were blue and temperatures hit the 40s, traffic soared to its highest point since late December with 47,923 vehicles. Eastbound traffic reached 27,541 cars, up more than 134% in just 48 hours.
But snow and multiple closures had already taken their toll. In three days, 124,000 vehicles passed through the tunnels. That is down 10% from the previous weekend and down roughly 9% from the same time last year.
Weekly I-70 tunnel counts brought to you by Dillon Ridge Liquors.