Interstate 70 in Colorado is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
	This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on March 1, 2021.
Article milestones Date Process Result May 10, 2008 Good article nominee Listed August 6, 2009 WikiProject A-class review Approved October 7, 2009 Featured article candidate Promoted A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the " Did you know?" column on February 21, 2008. The text of the entry was: Did you know ...that at the time of construction Interstate 70 in Colorado featured the world's highest road tunnel? Current status: Featured article

This article is rated FA-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

U.S. Roads: Interstates / Auto trails / Colorado Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of the U.S. Roads WikiProject, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to state highways and other major roads in the United States. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.U.S. RoadsWikipedia:WikiProject U.S. RoadsTemplate:WikiProject U.S. RoadsU.S. road transport articles Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Topics   Interstate Highways    U.S. auto trails   Locations   Colorado   This article has a map. If the file has an error, please work with the Maps department to correct it. This article has a junction list compliant with the Manual of Style on road junction lists. This article has a KML file. If the file has an error, please work with the Maps department to correct it. Article recognition:   This article was the selected article of the U.S. Roads Portal in March 2008. A fact from this article was featured on the Did you know? section of the U.S. Roads Portal in November 2008. United States: Colorado Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States articles Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by WikiProject Colorado, our collaboration to improve, create, and update Wikipedia articles about the U.S. State of Colorado. To comment about this article, select the New section tab above. For questions about, or to make suggestions for Colorado articles, go to our project's talk page. We invite you to join us!

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How do you nominate articles into a good article review? I think this one might just survive. ^_^ AL2TB ^_^ 23:41, 23 February 2008 (UTC) reply

I'm working on expanding this article and would welcome any help. In my opinion it is not ready for GA review yet, but has made a lot of progress in the last 2 weeks. There's a lot of unsourced material, and the Glenwood Canyon history section is week. If you want to help, my preference would be to find some good material on the construction in Glenwood canyon and help expand that section. I am from this area and am privy to a lot of info about Glenwood canyon but a GA article needs sourced info. I agree, I want this to be a GA. IMO both the Utah and Colorado portions of I-70 deserve FA class articles. Davemeistermoab ( talk) 23:46, 23 February 2008 (UTC) reply

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   B. MoS compliance:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

Nice job on this Dave, it passes all criteria. And is one of the best I've seen, Congrats. ^Mitch 32 ^contribs 17:59, 10 May 2008 (UTC) reply

I-70 generally follows the Midland Trail across Colorado; the only difference was between Denver and Wolcott, where it took a more northerly route over Berthoud Pass and along the Colorado River on what was then State Highway 11. This can be seen on [1] (except for the numbering as SH 11, which is in appendix C2 of [2]; confusingly, the map uses 11 in a black box for the Midland Trail). -- NE2 05:43, 5 August 2008 (UTC) reply

All the best, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 14:21, 25 September 2009 (UTC) reply

Thank you for the review, feedback, and kind words. Please advise if you have additional concerns. Dave ( talk) 19:12, 27 September 2009 (UTC) reply

Glewood Canyon is so good and why constuction went from 1960 to 1994? People are slowing constuction when it is a canyon and they think this is a forest. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.235.15.238 ( talk) 21:26, 19 June 2010 (UTC) reply

It's not so much construction that went from 1960 to 1994, but the entire planning, environmental clearance, design and construction process. Msramming ( talk) 18:23, 31 August 2017 (UTC) reply

Why is there such little coverage in the route description about I-70 east of Aurora? It looks like Aurora is on the Kansas border, by the way the route description is partitioned. -- P C B 04:38, 27 January 2011 (UTC) reply

The short answer is the lack of quality sourced content. When researching this article, almost all sources I could find focused on the part through the Rocky Mountains. I honestly felt like I was scraping the bottom of the barrel just to get what is there now. Dave ( talk) 04:45, 27 January 2011 (UTC) reply

Proposed Changes

Record of Decision Due to the increasing travel demands on the Interstate 70 Western Corridor, multiple stakeholders recognized the need to develop methods to increase the capacity of the corridor. In 2007 a 27-member stakeholder group convened, called Collaborative Effort. This group reached a consensus recommendation on a preferred solution in 2008. The recommendations from this group led to the Preferred Alternative. The Preferred Alternative includes both highway and transit improvements. On June 16, 2011, the Federal Highway Administration signed the Record of Decision (ROD) for the Interstate 70 Project Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS). After 20 years of research on over 200 alternative solutions, this ROD established the framework for proceeding with improvements to Interstate 70 between C-470 and Glenwood Springs in Colorado.

Preferred Alternative The Preferred Alternative includes highway improvements and evaluation and implementation of a new transit system. The highway improvements include: 1) expansion of the highway to six lanes from Floyd Hill through the Twin Tunnels 2) addition of a bike trail 3) addition of frontage roads from Idaho Springs east to Hidden Valley and Hidden Valley to U.S. 6, 4) improvements at Empire Junction (U.S. 40/I-70), 5) addition of an Eastbound auxiliary lane from the Eisenhower Johnson Memorial Tunnel (EJMT) to Herman Gulch, and 6)addition of a Westbound auxiliary lane from Bakerville to the EJMT. The transit system that will be evaluated is an Advanced Guideway System (AGS). ^{[1] [2]}

The specific technology for the AGS has not yet been decided. Genrally, an AGS is a high-speed automated guideway transit. An example of the type of technology is the Maglevsystem. The decision was made to process with an evaluation of AGS technologies.

Environmental Effects of Proposed Changes

Colorado vehicle miles traveled are predicted to double from 2000 to 2035. Due to improved fuel economy and increased use of renewable fuels, emissions are only predicted to increase by 4.7 percent by 2035. If nothing were changed to the current Interstate 70 Colorado Western Corridor, the emissions would actually be reduced, as congestion would suppress the predicted increase in vehicle miles traveled. In contrast, the preferred alternative would lead to a 29 to 43 percent increase in vehicle miles traveled in 2035. In the year 2000, emissions in tons per day associated with the Interstate Colorado Western Corridor were: 3.99 Particulate Matter Less Than 2.5 Microns, 4.26 Sulfur Dioxide, 16.45 Nitrogen Dioxide, 113.79 Carbon Monoxide, 16.45 Nitrogen Content of Emissions, not applicable Ammonia, and 49.54 Re-entrained Road Dust. The predicted emissions in tons per day with the Preferred Alternative: 0.12 to 0.13 Particulate Matter Less Than 2.5 Microns, 0.09 to 0.10 Sulfur Dioxide, 3.68 to 4.06 Nitrogen Dioxide, 66.00 to 72.88 Carbon Monoxide, 2.29 to 2.50 Nitrogen Content of Emissions, 0.83 to 0.92 Ammonia, and 88.20 to 97.73 Re-entrained Road Dust. So, while Carbon Monoxide emissions would be reduced dramatically, road dust would increase. ^[3] This increase in road dust could increase the deleterious health effects from Air Pollution. The increase in road dust would primarily impact people with pulmonary diseases, such as Asthma, COPD, Cystic fibrosis.

References from the added material

Discussion

A couple of things:

• This would be a "Future" section under WP:USRD/STDS.
• Headings in an article are in Sentence case, not Title Case, per MOS:HEAD
• I would make the ROD and PA lines above into subheadings of a Future section or remove them completely. Then I would include "Environmental effects" as a third/second subsection.
• All of the external links have to go. Convert them into footnotes as needed or move them to the article's "External links" section; per the MOS we don't link to external websites in the body of an article
• We have a different abbreviation convention for US Highways in this text that isn't consistent with the rest of the article. It's a minor point, but this is a Featured Article, so consistency and quality are key considerations.
• The two footnotes are bare URLs; they need to be fleshed out into proper citations that are consistent with the formatting of the rest of the article.
• On the subject of the sources, can we find some non-CDOT publications? Using DOT publications isn't a bad thing, per se, but if there are newspaper or other news articles that cover this, using them would be preferable to avoid any inherent bias in the sources.

There are just a few things to consider, from my perspective, at refining the text above. We might want to work on condensing it down a little to avoid undue weight, because these aren't really big changes. Imzadi 1979  → 19:50, 29 November 2011 (UTC) reply

Here are a few opinions that I have about this, in addition to what's above:

1. The whole bit is a MoS nightmare.
2. The 1) 2) 3) list smacks of "close paraphrasing"/plagiarism, whatever you want to call it. We would not accept that on a stub; we definitely do not accept it on a featured article.
3. The writing is certainly not featured quality. Not even B-class quality.
4. I'd like to know what type of class this is for. I don't mean any offense to Loebd, but editing Wikipedia should not ever be part of a class's curriculum. It took me a couple years to get comfortable with the accepted practices before I started producing real content. To cram of that plus the assignment(s) into one semester or quarter, whatever the case may be, would be nearly impossible.

At this point, I'm leaning towards not adding any of the aforementioned content to the article unless significant improvements are made. – Fredddie ™ 04:11, 30 November 2011 (UTC) reply

In my opinion there is some value in the 2nd paragraph of the "proposed changes" section. I've read several reports that the Eisenhower tunnel is a bottleneck in the corridor and several attempts and studies have been made to try to address the problem. Many 3rd party solutions involve drilling a 3rd bore; however, CDOT seems to prefer any alternative but drilling a 3rd bore. I would support a new section to the article that expands and focuses on that aspect. However, I agree with Fredddie that the environmental impacts section is rather generic; similar concerns exist with most every highway and this is hardly unique to I-70. I also have to echo some more of Fredddie's concerns. Many of the acronyms used in this section are unique to CDOT's technical documentation (EJMT being the obvious one) and would not be known, used, or understood by a general audience (in the case of EJMT, most every non-technical report just says Eisenhower tunnel). Is this section your own writing, or was this taken from a technical report? Dave ( talk) 21:56, 30 November 2011 (UTC) reply

I'd support adding a summary of the preferred alternative, although I must confess some personal interest since I was part of the consultant team developing the Programmatic EIS. The discussion should also describe the eastbound peak-period shoulder toll (I-70 Mountain Express) lane, and plans for a similar lane westbound. It seems any "Future" discussion should also address the portion of I-70 east of I-25, now called I-70 Central. There's a controversy over replacing an aging six-lane viaduct more so with ten lanes (ultimately two managed/HOT lanes each direction) than a depressed freeway, even though opponents have adopted the slogan "Ditch the Ditch". Msramming ( talk) 18:28, 31 August 2017 (UTC) reply

I'll just note that whatever topo map was scanned to create ACME Mapper's database does indeed show the recently added claim about I-70 bisecting the runway is correct [3]. I'll try to find out what map this is and add that to the article as a source. Dave ( talk) 20:43, 1 April 2013 (UTC) reply

I'll be honest, I thought I was making a pretty minor, uncontroversial change. What's the problem with this, and how is it inconsistent? Thanks, Mackensen (talk) 14:37, 21 September 2013 (UTC) reply

All of the other book citations list their page numbers in the footnote instead of using {{ rp}}. They also only list ISBN and not ISBN and OCLC. Imzadi 1979  → 15:23, 21 September 2013 (UTC) reply

Stripping out OCLC seems unnecessary, and there are only three book citations which could be easily reconciled (I am willing to do this). I wasn't previously aware that anyone objected to the inclusion of the OCLC link. {{ Rp}} is force of habit and obviously not necessary. Mackensen (talk) 15:30, 21 September 2013 (UTC) reply

This is a Featured Article, so consistency in its footnote formatting is a must. If the template you created supported |page= and |pages=, I probably wouldn't have reverted, but to switch how page numbers are indicated shouldn't be done in edits of that sort. Imzadi 1979  → 15:46, 21 September 2013 (UTC) reply

Oh I agree completely; I simply didn't pay enough attention to the conventions in use. I've implemented those parameters now. Mackensen (talk) 16:32, 21 September 2013 (UTC) reply

There some confusion regarding the extent of the concurrency of US 36 with I-70 east of the junction with I-270, related to CDOT signing practices.

CDOT's highway database ^[1] references roads on the state highway system by a number with a letter suffix, without regard to whether the route is signed with an Interstate, U.S. highway, or state highway shield.

Since about 1968, CDOT's practice has generally been not to have duplicate numbers for different shield types ^[2]. For example

• SH 70A is signed as Interstate 70
• SH 6G is signed as US 6 through Clear Creek Canyon and the 6th Ave Freeway
• SH 2A is routed along Colorado Blvd. and signed with a state shield

Further, CDOT's system does not acknowledge concurrencies. Only the one most noticeable route is included in the database. For the example of an Interstate and US highway concurrency, only the Interstate is reflected in CDOT's database. In the case of two concurrent US highways, the one in the database may be the lower numbered route or the route first established.

Unfortunately, the different segments of SH 36 are an exception to the one shield type rule:

• SH 36A is signed as US 36 from Rocky Mountain National park to Estes Park
• SH 36B is signed as US 36 through Boulder to I-25
• SH 36C is signed with a state highway shield from I-70 Exit 292 near Watkins to its terminus at SH 79B in Bennett
• SH 36D is signed with BOTH state highway shields from Bennett to the junction with SH 40D in Byers and then as US&nbps;36 east of there, including the nearby diamond interchange at I-70's Exit 316!

So by the CDOT perspective of the different segments of SH 36 all being the same route, the concurrency with US/SH 36 would end at Exit 292 near Watkins.

But for someone scanning the exit list, US 36 doesn't show up again until Exit 316 in Byers, which would appear to be the end of the concurrency.

What advice do others have about resolving this confusion? Thank you!

Msramming ( talk) 18:59, 31 August 2017 (UTC) reply

The Exit list was compiled from a combination of the OTIS Highway data db you mention, as it existed when about 10 years ago, and an early 2000s CDOT map, and has has numerous individual updates since then. I don't have any additional information above and beyond what you've presented. What I would say is the exit list as it exists now is consistent with how several published maps say, both old and new. (I was just looking at it from mapper.acme.com which has both 1960's era topo maps and modern mapping services available) so it's fair to say that what is there now isn't wrong. It's just a question of is it the best way to present it. This is somewhat similar to what is common in California, where there are several scenarios where a US or Interstate designation ends, but the roadway physically continues with a state route designation of the same number. However, in the case of CA, we know what's the most technically accurate by checking the terminus in the AASHTO logs against the stated terminus in the Caltrans logs. With Colorado it's more difficult as AASHTO lists the official termini, but not of each concurrency segment in the inland states. However, if we uses the "California scenario" as a guideline and compare their similar scenarios, the logical interpretation to say is that the SH36 breakoff near Watkins, CO is most likely considered part of highway 36 by the state, but not by AASHTO. That's what a similar scenario in that state would mean. And in similar situations in CA we have used the official designations, meaning what is in the exit list now is correct. Dave ( talk) 20:41, 6 September 2017 (UTC) reply

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The "Future" section has dated information, old sources, and does not appear to have been updated since 2017. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 02:48, 7 February 2021 (UTC) reply

@ Moabdave: -- Rs chen 7754 18:15, 7 February 2021 (UTC) reply

My personal opinion is most of that isn't really notable anyways and blast the whole section. But in the interest of not being a control freak owning my FA nominations, I'll search Denver newspapers today and see if that project was completed. Dave ( talk) 19:15, 8 February 2021 (UTC) reply

Done, thanks for bringing that to my attention. Dave ( talk) 19:41, 8 February 2021 (UTC) reply

Awesome, thanks! @ Wehwalt: for TFA scheduling. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 20:19, 8 February 2021 (UTC) reply

I've added an {{ As of}} template to a highway traffic figure from 2009 to indicate that this is not the current number, but other than that this is satisfactory and will mark it there at WP:URFA/2020. @ Rschen7754 and Moabdave: - Either of y'all are welcome to mark it as satisfactory there as well if you think it meets the FA criteria, so we can get it moved off the list of ones that need review. Hog Farm _Talk 15:14, 31 March 2021 (UTC) reply

It has been more than twelve years since this was promoted to FA, and while this article has remained stable, it has some issues which need to be addressed. Also, a lot has changed since this article was promoted, and what constitutes meeting the FA criteria is also bound to evolve over time. Therefore, if these issues are not addressed, I think we will need to nominate this article for an FA review. Here are the major points I noticed:

• Traffic count data is from 2009, and needs to be updated.

• Almost no history of the construction outside of the Eisenhower Tunnel, Glenwood Canyon, and Vail Pass stretches. While these other sections certainly (rightfully) didn't receive as much attention as the former, they still can't be ignored, and there is a chance that readers may be interested in learning when they were built.

• When did construction on the Johnson bore begin?

• No information about when the Vail Pass stretch was constructed.

• Information about the predecessor highway through Glenwood Canyon might should be moved to the earlier routes section. The 2021 closures are also mentioned in two separate sections.

• The Colorado Department of Transportation is considering the nomination of various portions of I-70 as a National Historic Landmark, even though the freeway will not qualify as historical for several decades. - has this occurred yet? The source (dead) is from 2009.

• Information about the 1984 Mousetrap accident and current reconstruction might should be moved to a new section titled "Later history", "Major projects", etc. Also, very little information about the multi-phase Mousetrap reconstruction project; the last sentence of this paragraph reads a bit awkward.

• Absolutely no mention of the 2019 Lakewood semi-truck crash. While accidents like this should usually not be included unless they were caused by a design of the roadway and/or led to a redesign of the roadway, this accident has received a lot of attention, primarily due to the controversial sentence of the driver. Also, this does not appear to be the only high-profile crash that has ever occurred on I-70 in Colorado. According to multiple sources, the unusual warning messages along the eastern descent of the Rockies were installed after a similar accident in 1989.

• Lots of dead urls in citations.

These are the main points I noticed. I will concede that the style of writing used in this article is definitely that of an FA. However, these issues should be addressed, or else this article will need to be reviewed. Bneu2013 ( talk) 05:53, 11 March 2022 (UTC) reply

I agree the History section needs to be added to cover the accident you mentioned, and perhaps re-organized for better flow now that there are multiple incidents for which I-70 through Colorado has had nationwide affect. I'll sign up to work on that. However, frankly some of these are nitpics. Regarding the apparent undue weight given to the portion through the rockies. Literally EVERY source I found gave focused on those sections while not spending too much time talking about the great plains sections, for obvious reasons. I struggled to find what little content on the great plains section in the article that is there. I frankly see this as normal, not a problem. By comparison an article discussing the architecture of an older city would naturally focus on the downtown and historical districts, and much less on the post WWII, bland built on an assembly line suburban sprawl neighborhoods. The only such articles that would give much coverage to the suburbs would be newer cities for which there is little to no dense urban core. Dave ( talk) 16:52, 11 March 2022 (UTC) reply