The Colorado Department of Transportation’s U.S. 160 reconstruction project is a few short days away, with work anticipated to start Monday, March 24. We hope your patient pants are ready.
On page 3 of this issue, you’ll see an informational box about the project and the work planned for the coming week, as well as additional project information. The SUN is working with project personnel to provide this feature for you every week of the project when construction is active. We will also post the information at www.PagosaSUN.com.
On this week’s back page you’ll also find a map of the public parking areas that will be available throughout the project.
We hope this will help you understand where the more intensive work is taking place each week and help you plan as this investment is made in our community.
Ours is one of several efforts in the community aiming to help everyone stay informed, meaning there’s little excuse for being caught off guard by this project and its projected impacts.
We’re also one of several entities in the community aiming to encourage everyone to stay positive and helpful throughout this project instead of being pessimistic and determining it will ruin everything.
It’s an understatement to say that this project is creating fear and concern for the community, especially when paired with the drier winter we’ve had and the fact that many of our neighbors rely on tourism for their livelihoods. And we’re among those who have some concerns about the project and how it will function when complete.
But, we also realize we’re not safety engineers, road engineers, contractors or anything related to determining how the roadway should be reconstructed and we haven’t sat it on the many hours of meetings regarding the design and engineering, so we’ll reserve our judgment for when the project is complete and we can see how it all works.
And we’ll put on our patient pants while it’s underway and support our community.
We’ve heard several people comment that they just won’t go downtown for the next couple years while the project is taking place.
That’s exactly the wrong attitude if you care about our community.
It will be imperative as this project kicks off (and always) that we support each other and our local businesses. These are our friends, our neighbors and people who very directly contribute to the economic vitality of our community through things like employment opportunities and sales tax revenue.
Hopefully, as our budgets and schedules allow, we can all take some time to enjoy a meal at a local restaurant and peruse shops we may not have the opportunity to visit often.
We’ll continue to prioritize local products when shopping for gifts, and we’ll continue to take our visitors for a stroll downtown to partake in some of our favorite places.
We’ve never let road construction deter us from browsing around places we visit when we travel out of town, and we won’t let it stop us here.
We hope you won’t let it stop you, either.
Let’s work together to stay informed and supportive.
