COLORADO SPRINGS – A major project is about to start on Highway 24.
The Colorado Department of Transportation told News 5 that potholes have gotten so bad that the westbound side of the road needs to be resurfaced.
CDOT says crews will be resurfacing a 7-mile stretch from 8th Street in Colorado Springs all the way up to mile marker 296 past Manitou Springs. It’s bound to cause some headaches for not only drivers, but businesses along the way.
“We are super frustrated honestly, very frustrated,” said Rachel Leinweber, general manager of Angler’s Covey. It’s a fly-fishing outfitter off of Highway 24 in Colorado Springs.
“Summer is vital to our business. We are very tourism-based…hundreds, hundreds of people come through here just for our guide trips alone and then thousands just to stop in and get gear.”
The money brought in from June to August is almost $1 million. It’s the shop’s most important time of year and something that could now be in jeopardy with a construction project about to start on Highway 24.
Leinweber said, “I would just love to have a break from construction because it hit us last year and we saw our business take a dip because of it…if it could just be pushed back a couple of months that would save us.”
But Michelle Peulen with CDOT says that’s not possible.
“Asphalt is temperature dependent so we have to do that during the summer months.”
She explained that crews will be doing as much of the resurfacing at night as they can from Sunday to Thursday, but work during the day is still possible.
“It’s a tough balancing act because we want everyone to enjoy the U.S. 24 corridor, but we want to keep it in good shape too.”
The goal is to start resurfacing at the end of this month and have things wrapped up by the end of this year. As far as closures and detours, that information won’t be released for another week or so.
