CDOT's New Traffic Monitoring Blimp A Dud On The First Try
DENVER (CBS4) - A traffic blimp the Colorado Department of Transportation plans to use to monitor traffic was supposed to go up on Tuesday, but the blimp has a hole.
The hope was that the blimp would get up into the air and give CDOT a wonderful view of the traffic over Interstate 25 and I-70 -- referred to as the mousetrap -- and then of I-76 and the various ramps located on I-76, I-270, and U.S. 36, but it was a no-go.
The GPS unit did exactly what it was supposed to do and cut a hole in the blimp if it gets away. The problem was that the blimp never got away, so that means they will have to wait until Wednesday to launch it. When they get the blimp into the air, Skysentry President Charlie Lambert hopes to showcase all the many things the aerostat can do.
"We call it the elegance of elevation -- that being up there and looking over a wide area will help them to decide what is causing these kinds of traffic backups and pileups and so on and resolve them for the future," Lambert said.
Lambert hopes to get the blimp into the air Wednesday and get the view he has promised CDOT.
CDOT likes the blimp because one of the units is about $50,000. One of the many CDOT cameras used to view the traffic now is about $200,000. So it's a great cost savings with wonderful versatility -- in theory. They've got to get it into the air first.