It’s finally almost here.
For years we’ve been hearing talk of a major Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) reconstruction project on U.S. 160 through downtown Pagosa Springs.
It began with conceptual talks at Pagosa Springs Town Council meetings and progressed over the years, leading to last year’s postponement, public meetings, meetings with representatives of the business community and now, finally, a start date: March 17.
This project has been nothing short of controversial over that time, and continues to be so.
Many have voiced genuine concerns over the functionality of the project and how it will be carried out, and CDOT representatives have spent a lot of time discussing the project with the community, trying to increase understanding and dispel fears.
But, despite all that, hesitations remain, and concerns persist over how our community will weather the construction this year and next given our dependence on visitors to our community, and if the new alignment through town will help reduce crashes or lead to more safety concerns.
We understand those fears and concerns, and have some of our own still.
But, ultimately, we won’t know how it will all play out until the project is complete, and we can only focus on the now.
The project will obviously greatly affect traffic downtown, just as the McCabe Creek project did (on a smaller scale, of course). It will be annoying. It will be frustrating. We’ll be right in the thick of it to get to work and school, and we’re sure we’ll gripe about it. But we’ll put our patient pants on and get through it.
And we, as a community, will get through it together, one day at a time.
We at The SUN have plans to meet with project staff this week to formulate the best way to continue to provide timely, useable updates to the community on a regular basis.
We hope that information will help make the project a little less frustrating and provide information that will make it easier to support our friends, neighbors and fellow community members with businesses, especially those along the affected route.
Supporting each other throughout this project will be critical to successfully weathering it.
One thing that will, without a doubt, make the entire situation worse, though, is misinformation.
We’ve heard a lot of misinformation this week alone, ranging from another postponed start date to allegations the entire project is a conspiracy to kill downtown businesses and relocate everything to the west side of Pagosa Springs.
We don’t foresee either of those things happening, for so many reasons.
SUN staff has worked with those in charge throughout the project in efforts to disseminate helpful, accurate information to our community, and we will continue to do so throughout its duration.
We also encourage you to seek answers instead of relying on unchecked social media comments, today and every day.
More about the project can be found in this week’s front-page article.
We also encourage everyone with concerns to attend the upcoming informational sessions where they can find answers to their specific questions.
This evening, Feb. 27, project representatives will be hosted by the local Cone Zone Care Committee for a 6 p.m. session at Motel SOCO.
On Monday, CDOT will host a project open house in the exhibit hall at the fairgrounds (located at 344 U.S. 84) at 6 p.m.
Randi Pierce
