Colorado State Government at its Best

We need to celebrate where the state is quietly competent

Back during the Ritter administration we were driving back from Steamboat Springs and they were rebuilding a 2 lane highway. Not resurfacing but tearing up all the old asphalt, reworking the roadbed, and laying down a new base and asphalt.

They had one lane closed and were alternating traffic on the other lane. We got waved through and it was fascinating. They had a line of machines, one after the other, that was ripping up the old stuff, then laying down the new. While it was a large number of machines and trucks, it really was a single tightly coupled organism.¹

Granted they’ve likely been doing this for decades and therefore have the time to keep improving. But something so perfect is also due to people constantly improving the system and taking care to execute it perfectly.

There was another situation where tow trains collided head on under a US-36 bridge, taking out the bridge. It was a Friday afternoon. By Monday morning CDOT had detours on both sides of 36 so that rush hour traffic was slowed a little, but not much.

So here’s to the Colorado Department of Transportation. We rarely hear of them because they tend to be quietly competent. That’s not easy, it requires they constantly work to execute well. That should be acknowledged.

1. To any fellow nerds, engineers, etc. - if you ever see this you’ll find it beautiful.