LOVELAND, Colo. — Joe from Estes Park writes, “What’s driving you crazy? Take a look at the intersection of Highway 34 and Madison in Loveland. It is the strangest most illogical design and a lot of people when they turn onto Madison go down the wrong way on a one way. You've never seen anything like it.”
Actually Joe, I’ve seen a bunch of intersections just like it around metro Denver including two new ones in Wheat Ridge and three along Santa Fe in Douglas County. This is called a Continuous Flow Intersection (CFI) where the left turn begins well before the crossroads.
That specific one in Loveland was the first CFI to be constructed in Colorado and the 111th to be constructed in the United States. Traffic engineers use them in places where they want to make left turns safer and move traffic more efficiently through an intersection.
Finished in November of 2010, the city of Loveland put out a YouTube video showing how it is supposed to work and touting the benefits of the new design. A few years later, the Colorado Department of Transportatoin constructed their first CFI in Durango at the very busy US 160/550 intersection.
The reason traffic engineers like them is that CFI’s allow for left-turning traffic and through-traffic to move simultaneously. Traditional intersections have left-turning traffic in the middle of the road, so through-traffic must wait for those vehicles to turn.
A CFI shifts left-turning traffic to the outside of the through lanes, which allows opposite moving traffic to flow simultaneously, thus increasing the number of vehicles that can make it through the intersection in a single traffic light cycle.
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The latest example is in Wheat Ridge along Wadsworth where CFI’s were constructed at 38th and 44th avenues. The city sent out an informational page about how the intersection is supposed to work. Even so, I have received more than a handful of complaints about the new layout and how frustrated and confused drivers are trying to get through them. Douglas County installed three of them when they rebuilt Santa Fe from County Line to Highlands Ranch Parkway. I heard some complaints but not as much as about the ones in Wheat Ridge.
CFI’s are different than a traditional left but not difficult to understand once you get used to it. If you are turning left, you look for the turn lane that begins well before the intersection. When the light turns green, you follow that lane to the main intersection and then turn left. Any through-traffic or right turning traffic proceeds as it would in a typical intersection.
The Loveland Reporter-Herald reported in 2015 that according to former Loveland city engineer Dave Klockeman, this design seemed the most pragmatic and cost-effective at the time.
“When it came down to the final decision, the biggest issue was the left turns to go from southbound to eastbound,” Klockeman said, adding that if the city opted for a conventional intersection, the same problems would reappear in the next five to 10 years of growth. I reached out to Klockeman to ask him if he still feels the same way 16 years later, but I never heard back.
I asked the current city public works department how they think the CFI has worked out. Their acting engineer says overall good, saying they still are contacted by many agencies around the country wanting to learn about operations, benefits and challenges. They are also pleased so many years later how the CFI has improved traffic efficiency and created a safer environment with more predictable vehicle movements.
I also asked if there would be any changes to the current layout or signal timing. I was told no, it will stay the same even though the city occasionally receives public comments saying that the intersection feels confusing. The city added that they encourage residents to share their detailed observations with them so that staff can thoroughly evaluate potential improvements if necessary.
Denver7 Traffic Expert Jayson Luber says he has been covering Denver-metro traffic since Ben-Hur was driving a chariot. (We believe the actual number is over 25 years.) He's obsessed with letting viewers know what's happening on their drive and the best way to avoid the problems that spring up. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram or listen to his award winning Driving You Crazy podcast on any podcast app including iTunes, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Podbean, or YouTube.
WHAT'S DRIVING YOU CRAZY? DENVER7'S JAYSON LUBER ANSWERS YOUR QUESTIONS.
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