On his return home from the mountains, DU student John Johnson hit unexpectedly long traffic waits on I-70. On a weekend ski trip to Summit County, Johnson left the mountains early Sunday afternoon in hopes to return back to campus in time for the 2007 Super Bowl. However, due to a combination of car accidents and bad weather Johnson was forced to miss his junior year of college in a full 365-day wait in I-70 traffic.
“It was always in the back of my head that there might be traffic on our way home, but when I looked up and saw an electronic sign reading 8760 hours to Denver, my heart began to sink,” Johnson exclaimed.
“At first it didn’t seem so bad,” he continued. “It was exciting, like standing on a mysteriously sticky floor in line for an almost emptied keg at an over-crowded frat party.” He then added, “But after the first few months I began to realize I was really missing out on one of the prime years of my life, stuck in a traffic jam.”
The main factor contributing to this backup has been reported to be the 903 accidents on the interstate (all involving Subarus). The second factor contributing to the jam was the severe weather conditions. Some described the road as an unbeaten trail needing to be pioneered, with patches of unexpected black ice, lowered visibility and 65-foot snow drifts piled on the road. With these driving hazards, many parties were forced to stop and make decisions such as whether to ford through the frozen snow drifts or calk up the car and float over them. Another flustered DU student stuck in the jam exclaimed, “We were stuck so long in the car several of those in our party died of dysentery,” said the student. “Therefore, I decided to go hunting for the next few weeks where I shot 2,000 pounds of buffalo meat but could only carry 200 back to the car. Although this did not improve my situation, it was quite satisfying.”
A passenger and friend of Johnson expressed his disappointment saying, “The wait really wouldn’t have been so bad if we were prepared, but with all of our ski gear tightly packed we were a little cramped.” But apparently the worst of it was yet to come: “All those bean burritos we ate before the trip made the car atmosphere deadlier than an Al Gore documentary,” Johnson’s passenger added.
In retrospect, Johnson regrets not moving into one of the right three lanes, which were reported to have been significantly less busy. As he describes, “As soon as I pulled in to the lane marked ‘overnight parking lot 3’ the traffic came to a complete stop. It was as if the cars didn’t even have drivers,” he complained.
But Johnson decided to stick it out. “I was tempted to change lanes, but I decided to stick to my guns and wait for my lane to have its spurt.”
