Courtesy of CDOT
Inspectors remove paint and conduct ultrasonic testing on the underside of the bridge while tarps prevent debris from falling into the reservoir.
Additional times will be added to a local detour around the bridge closure on U.S. Highway 50 over Blue Mesa Reservoir to allow local traffic to reach work, school and medical care four times a day, transportation officials announced Wednesday.
Starting Friday, County Road 26 will be open four times a day between Montrose and Gunnison.
A pilot car will guide traffic at the following times:
6:30 to 7 a.m. for westbound travel beginning at Colorado Highway 149 and County Road 26
7:30 to 8 a.m. for eastbound travel beginning at US 50 and CR 26
Noon to 12:30 p.m. for westbound travel beginning at CO 149 and CR 26
1 to 1:30 p.m. for eastbound travel beginning at US 50 and CR 26
6:30 to 7 p.m. for westbound travel beginning at CO 149 and CR 26
7:30 to 8 p.m. for eastbound travel beginning at US 50 and CR 26
8:30 to 9 p.m. for westbound travel beginning at CO 149 and CR 26
9:30 to 10 p.m. for eastbound travel beginning at US 50 and CR 26
Courtesy of CDOT
Crews continue work on 26 Road to ensure it can be used as a local access route
The added times will allow residents in Montrose, Gunnison and Hinsdale counties to travel between Montrose and Gunnison after the sudden and indefinite shutdown of U.S. 50 bridge on April 18. The closure came at the urging of federal highway officials after crews found a 3-inch crack in structural steel on the bridge at Dillon Pinnacles.
The journey from Montrose to Gunnison over the bridge typically takes about an hour. The unexpected shutdown has left people stranded on either side of the closure, forcing them to take detours between six to seven hours to reach home, work or school, and likely will significantly impact the upcoming summer tourism season and the area’s agricultural industry.
The County Road 26 detour adds about an hour of driving time between Gunnison and Montrose. The detour is 87 miles.
CDOT opened County Road 26, also known as the Lake City cutoff route, days after the bridge was closed, but the rugged dirt road was not designed to handle heavy traffic. To accommodate the increased use because of the bridge closure, crews with Kiewit Infrastructure Co. will continue to improve the road when pilot cars are not guiding traffic across it, including patching up “hotspots” or softer areas of the road that need addressing, CDOT Communications Director Matt Inzeo said Wednesday.
In the past week and a half since the detour opened, crews have dumped more than 13,300 cubic yards of gravel along 10 miles of road, Inzeo said. (A cubic yard is roughly the size of a washing machine.)
Photo courtesy of CDOT
Identified crack on US 50 bridge near the Dillon Pinnacles, located west of Gunnison. This photo shows the crack after further investigation.
“What it’s designed to do is make sure that what is normally, basically a seasonal Jeep road, can handle much greater traffic loads than it normally needs to,” Inzeo said. “This obviously isn’t going to get it to U.S. 50 standards, nor should we, but we do need to have much more regular travel across the road at a time of year when it’s normally still snow covered.”
No other public travel will be allowed on the county road outside of the designated times, and trailers and large trucks are not allowed to use the detour.
CDOT engineers are still assessing damage to the bridge and considering a variety of options to repair it. A timeline for reopening is still unclear.
Crews have cleared a path through Kebler Pass, a mostly dirt road that connects Crested Butte with Delta County, but “significant melting” still needs to happen before it’s safe for traffic to safely pass, Inzeo said. The road is about 30 miles and tops out at 10,007 feet.
