With its 180-degree bends, 7% grades, dangerous drop-offs and strong wind gusts, the hazardous material truck drivers hauling heavy petroleum loads who make the 9.5-mile journey though Colorado’s Loveland Pass call the drive a “white-knuckle experience.”
Were it not for the flammable loads they carry, those same truckers would not have to divert off Interstate 70. Instead, they would be able to travel though the 1.7-mile Eisenhower Tunnel that cuts through the mountains, shaving as much as 90 minutes from taking the dangerous two-lane U.S. 6 that travels over the Continental Divide.
No wonder executives with the Colorado Motor Carriers Association and Colorado Wyoming Petroleum Marketers Association have for years been pressing members of the state Legislature and Colorado Department of Transportation to use the tunnel route for the up-to-200 tankers that each day are forced to take the dangerous road.
So far, they haven’t succeeded, but another attempt for resolution began last month at a meeting in Austin, Texas, with American Trucking Associations’ hazmat policy committee.