More changes in the works for traffic on Colorado's Lookout Mountain Road in Jefferson County
More changes are coming to Lookout Mountain Road, adding to the push by Jefferson County to close the iconic roadway at night.
The county has launched a traffic study to zero in on changes that could increase safety for everyone who uses it.
"Lookout Mountain came up as a crash pattern for off-road and head-on collisions," said Christina Lane with Jefferson County.
Lane is the transportation operations and planning manager for Jefferson County. She says data from a countywide study in 2021 highlighted the need to make changes on the four-mile stretch of roadway.
In December of last year, a hit-and-run driver left two cyclists badly injured when trying to pass on one of the curves.
Michael Lee, 47, shared his story with CBS Colorado shortly after the crash.
"They floored it. Seconds later, they hit the cyclist in front of me, " Lee said, "Surely, they were going to stop, and they stepped on the gas and I rolled off the back of the vehicle."
The county has now launched a road study to help target changes it could potentially make to help improve safety for all. The first step of the project is a community survey.
"How the survey is set up now is what would people feel safer with, what kind of solution? " Lane said.
Lookout Mountain users can rank their biggest concerns as cyclists, drivers or pedestrians and rank potential solutions.
"Spot treatments are very common and becoming more common in the county, where we might be able to widen the roadway in strategic locations to provide a safe passing opportunity, or is it converting the road to one way direction and dedicating more space for cyclists so that multiple road users can coexist a little more safely," said Lane, who explained these are some of the options available to consider.
Lane says Jefferson County deliberately separated this traffic study from the night closure work because it focuses on crime and safety while they are looking at traffic safety.
To learn more, visit the county's blog on the topic, where you can also take the survey.
While the discussion is underway, Lane says there's a long road ahead.
"It will be years before anything is eventually implemented," Lane said.
