Starting Thursday, one of Colorado's most scenic and popular highways will reopen for the tourist season.
With summer approaching, transportation official are opening US 34 to help accommodate the growing number of people visiting Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park.
US 34 in Loveland is currently closed to everyone except residents, who are only permitted to pass twice a day during a three hour window. The highway will be open to everyone starting Thursday, May 23 until October.
Highway 34 was closed to traffic in October of 2016. Since then, crews have made significant progress in the Big Thompson Canyon.
Since closing the canyon in mid-October, crews blasted and hauled nearly 20,000 trucks full of rock. Crews have also reshaped the river in an effort to prevent flooding. A new bridge is also being constructed to allow traffic over the canyon, instead of parallel to it.
Despite these gains, project officials are quick to point out that a significant amount of road and river work still needs to be done, including the difficult reconstruction work in the space-constrained area known as the "Narrows" on the east end of the canyon.
US 34 was badly damaged during the 2013 floods. The canyon and its residents also suffered from the flooding in 1976. As a result of these two events, CDOT studied the hydraulic flow of the river in the canyon and its impact on the road and bridges along its path while looking for safety improvements and resiliency solutions to prevent/protect against future flooding events.
Residents in the area have expressed frustration over the extended closing of US 34, confused about why the road can't be open since the pavement portion of the project is complete.
Johnny Olsen serves as CDOT's Region 4 Transportation Director and formerly served as the agency's incident commander during the 2013 floods.
"This road wasn't build to standards, it wasn't built to any protection," Olsen explains. "I think it's hard for people. We know that construction impacts people but we want to minimize that stress."
The reopening of US 34 makes the halfway point for CDOT's project. Once the second full closure begins in October 2017, crews will widen the river and reconstruct the Waltonia Bridge west of Drake.
The second phase of the project is expected to be completed by the end of 2018.
