Concession reached on highway restriping

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Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) Engineer Mike McVaugh’s presentation concerning the possibility of restriping U.S. 160 through the downtown area of Pagosa Springs drew quite a crowd to last Thursday’s town council meeting.

Every seat in the audience gallery was full and a crowd of people stood in the doorway of the council chamber as Town Manager Greg Schulte introduced McVaugh and his proposal.

Schulte explained that CDOT has been interested in improving the flow of traffic along the highway through the downtown area, mainly from 10th to 1st streets, for quite some time. Recently, CDOT allocated funds to improve U.S. 160 from Alamosa to Cortez.

Schulte described the highway as a major east-west corridor and explained that CDOT’s main concern was with keeping the flow of traffic along that route as smooth as possible. He did reassure the crowd, however, that CDOT was aware of the importance Pagosa business owners place on their parking spaces.

“When you look at the throughway,” Schulte pointed out, “it is a defined space. There is one side of the street, and then there is the other side of the street, and there’s only so much stuff that you can fit within that.”

Schulte explained that there are a variety of interests with seemingly competing ideas about what should be done with that space.

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