With each passing day the impacts from the US 50 bridge closure between Montrose and Gunnison are being calculated around the dinner table by small business owners who depend on the highway. The bridge closed on April 18, 2024 after finding structural issues.
Montrose house movers impacted by US 50 Bridge Closure
KVNF’s Brody Wilson spoke to one family in Montrose whose livelihood is being significantly affected.
“ We do a lot of work in Crested Butte and surrounding areas, house moving, building, raising, preserving historical buildings,” said Noah Vogenthaler who was in Crested Butte building jobs when the bridge actually closed.
“So we were headed to Gunnison to look at three jobs that are going to be starting directly here within the next month. And we noticed that they were doing a bridge inspection on the way up there. And then on the way back they had road closed sign, but I didn't know exactly where it was and I thought we could maybe come around the other way to Crawford and around that way, but it was closed and they diverted this around and we had to come back over Monarch and Leadville and back up I-70, which is a seven and a half hour detour,“ the house mover said.
Semis can't go as fast as a car, so these kinds of detours take a lot longer for them. Normally the trip to Crested Butte is roughly two and a half hours when the moving truck is loaded, however, taking the suggested I-70 detour turns the trip into a ten to twelve hours, depending on traffic.
“It's going to add probably two days of travel on each end of the job. So prior four days of travel total per job, which is significant and there's wear and tear on vehicles and fuel,” noted Noah, who whipped out the calculator on his phone and started doing the math on how much more his business would be out due to the bridge closure.
“So transportation costs per job would be 48 man hours going over per job with a four man crew, and equipment getting over. There's roughly $1,800 dollars each way, $3,600 per job,” he said.
North Fork Valley tourism business dealing with US 50 highway closure
The impact of the US 50 bridge closure reached all the way up to the North Fork Valley in Delta County where Cindie Sorensen, owner of ZenZen Gardens in Paonia, is experiencing deja vu coming off last year's closure of Colorado Highway 133 that cut off tourism traffic from Glenwood Springs and Carbondale.
Now she and numerous businesses in the North Fork Valley are facing the closure of U.S. 50. The highway between Gunnison and Montrose, is often used by tourists traveling west to a number of Western Slope destinations, including ZenZen Gardens.
“I had bookings come in and I've had three cancellations in the last week since the bridge closed. So it's definitely impacting my business,” Sorensen said.
While Sorensen's venue, which hosts weddings, special events, vacation rentals and music concerts, is feeling the economic sting, she says she's not the only business affected.
“Yeah, it's just not me, though. It's anybody who has Airbnb. It's the winery. It's the same scenario as last year. It hurts everybody in our valley because if people aren't coming over here to relax and enjoy what we offer, you know, it affects everybody," Sorensen lamented. "It affects the grocery stores because now, you know, I'm not buying as much things as I need. I'm not buying cheese or I'm not buying, you know, different products that I need to run my business. So it hurts everybody in the valley from the impacts of the US 50 bridge closure on tourism.”
KVNF Farm Friday: Ag producers feeling the pinch due to US 50 closure
KVNF spoke to Katie Alexander, CSU Extension, about the impacts on agriculture in our area due to the US 50 closure.
“So with the bridge being shut down one of the only routes that we have to get to Gunnison is County Road 26 and a couple of weeks ago that was also closed down to larger traffic.” said Alexander.
“ So this time of year we have a lot of ag producers that haul cattle from the Montrose area to Gunnison and it's actually just not the Montrose area. It's also the West End of the county as well. There's people from Delta that travel to Gunnison. I know there's a few producers from Whitewater. Also, San Miguel County has a lot of livestock that are moved to the high country this time of year. Sheep, cattle, horses, even.”
Alexander gave KVNF some sense of the financial impacts at this time. “Just some quick chicken scratch on a piece of paper. You know, it typically is about $6 a loaded mile to facilitate. And so from Montrose to Gunnison is somewhere around probably $500 to 600 in an average year. And they had been talking about whether County Road 26 was even opened up for this movement. They were going to go up and around I-70 and then back down,” said the ag expert.
“That's probably with a semi-truck load of cattle, an 8 to 9 hour trip for these cattle loaded in this trailer and that mileage increased that trip to about $2,000 a load. So something that should have been $500, $600 is now $2,000 and then on top of it, they were looking at having load off areas at a couple of spots along the way because the increase in shipping, sickness and death loss in these cattle from being on a trailer that long is a real concern,” said Alexander.
Lake City Cutoff eases some traffic woes on U.S. 50 but long waits are still the norm
The bridge closure on U.S. 50 had drivers using Gunnison County Road 26, also known as the Lake City Cut Off as a detour. Laura Palmisano reported that the road was not open all the time, so people had to plan ahead and expect delays.
Palmisano drove up to the Lake City Cut Off during midday where she witnessed a long line of cars on Highway 149 side of the cutoff. Drivers like Steve Bonnell were queuing up for the noon opening of County Road 26.
Bonnell owns a nearby ranch. He's in a pickup truck that's pulling an empty livestock trailer. He's using the Lake City Cut Off to get another load of cattle.
“Well, we own a ranch here in Powderhorn. We own one on Kannah Creek, down by Grand Junction and this is where we summer and that's where we winter,” the rancher told Palmisaso.
“So we haul all the cows up every spring and back every fall. About 20 to 30 head a day, takes us about ten days to get them all hauled back in April.”
When he first heard the news about the bridge closure. He was worried. Bonnell wasn't sure how he would get his livestock to their summer pasture in Gunnison County. So his son called the Colorado Department of Agriculture.
Bonnell told the reporter, “They said we were about the 80th person that have ranches up here in the summer. And after that bridge closed, they said they weren't going to allow us to bring trailers or semis or anything on this road. And they finally changed their mind. I guess they got enough pressure because we would have sold our cows.”
The bypass is a dirt road that isn't designed for heavy duty vehicles or the volume of traffic normally seen on U.S. 50. However, it opened to some commercial vehicles in trailers in mid-May, much to the relief of area ranchers and business owners. However, to restrict the amount of traffic on that road. The cut off is not open all the time, leading to complicated journeys and long wait times for many travelers.
Heather Malcolm and her son are using the bypass today to travel from Gunnison to Montrose. He has a 2:00 appointment for leaving at 10:30 am and will be home by 9:00 tonight.
“So it's a big day for a 20 minute orthodontist appointment, that's for sure,” Malcolm said. She's also frequently using the cut off to get her son two out of town soccer games.
"We were in panic last week and for a game we were in Rifle the weekend before Grand Junction, this coming weekend for tournaments. You know, it's just an inconvenience,” she said.
Malcolm is a nurse at Gunnison Valley Hospital. She says despite the bridge closure, the hospital has a plan in place for when a patient needs to be transferred.
“I feel like our hospital has done a great job just kind of organizing everything and making it as fluid as it can be. You know, it's kind of a combination of flying people out, ground transportation with EMS, all of those things.”
The Sheriff's Office in Gunnison County is where the emergency operations center for the bridge closure is housed. The operation center coordinates with local governments and emergency officials to ensure County Road 26 is accessible and in good repair.
Chuck Bulke is the deputy incident commander for the state led crisis response team, the ambulance service, and the fire department.
“They have priority access to County Road 26 with the piloted car if something's happening. As you can hear, they're communicating right now. If something happens, they (emergency crews) can communicate with that pilot car and get everybody pulled over and allow that emergency vehicle to go by, “ said Bulke.
