Roadtrippin' Colorado Style

Headed west on SH 96. That's the Wet Mountain range in the background. This pic is also used at the top of all of the r-dub pages except the COSMIX section.

This is the western END! of SH 96. To the left lies Salida, to the right Canon City.

SH 291 is a connector road between US 50 and US 285. You'll never see a reassurance shield for SH 291 without a TO SH xx shield beside it.

Old bridge with new guardrails. This is on SH 291.

Another END! This one is the northern terminus of SH 291. Helpful hint to aspiring photogs of roads: get a camera that you can set the focus on. Mine can't, and every now and then I get a pic like this where the focus point was the windshield.

In Black Forest now. This is a shot of the reconstruction of Shoup road and SH 83. We're on Shoup. What makes this interesting is the arrow barricade between the first two cars. These are seen everywhere in the midwest; this is the first I've ever seen them here.

Heading south on Marksheffel Road in Colorado Springs. First, why didn't the crews just install one SH 94 shield and a double-headed arrow? Next, see those cameras to the left? SH 94 is the main way to get to Schreiver AFB, which is high on the DOD's priority list. The cameras allow base personnel to watch for suspect traffic, bigwigs, and the like. Or so I guess.

An old wire span blinking light. This is at Marksheffel and Space Village Ave. This intersection really needs a full traffic signal now. I waited a few minutes to get across this road.

This is how the City of Colorado Springs lets you know that El Paso County is taking over maintenance of the road.

Still on Marksheffel Road, now in far southeast Colorado Springs. Marksheffel widens to a four lane divided road for about a mile. There's even wiring in place for streetlights. Why this kind of road way out in BFE? Back in the mid-1980's, Colroado Springs decided on creating a Foregin Trade Zone to try to attract new business. Well, at the time the airport we had really couldn't handle it (amongst other issues), and the idea fell apart. This was going to be the main road through the zone.

Colorado Springs even annexed in the land for the FTZ. This is where the annex stopped. We're now on Fontaine Blvd. headed towards Security, CO. Security is a small town that Colorado Springs is about to grow around.

Now on Academy Blvd/SH 83. This is at the US 85 interchange. Technically you can get back into Colorado Springs from here, too.

The reason the signage is only listing Fountain as a control city is pretty obvious here. US 85 has been turned back to the city for about 3 miles to the north of Academy.

On Lake Avenue in Colorado Springs. This is one of a few ways the city signs roundabouts. These roundabouts are tiny. The intersections aren't much bigger than they were before the roundabouts were installed.

A little further east of the roundabout is the northern END! of SH 115. This is also the end of SH 122, which is what Lake Avenue was until the mid-90's. The sign in the foreground is incorrect: US 85 is on Lake just after the bridge: no "To" is necessary.

Another angle of the BEGIN!ning of SH 115. Also note the abandoned roadway curving to the right. I wanted to check it out, but it's all on private property with well-placed No Trespassing signs. Oh, well.

When the Garden of the Gods Road/I-25 interchange was rebuilt in the mid-80's, local traffic had to get used to a different way to access the interstate. These blue signs were posted throughout this part of the neighborhood. Also, check out the lighted street signs on the traffic signals. Yeah, they sit at the angle of the wires. COS still has to figure out the best way to hang these, and what they're supposed to say on them.

Contrary to this sign, I-25 does not end at Pueblo. I think CDOT could have come up with some other cities for a distance sign here.

This sign is heavily advertised because of a recent traffic shift. Originally, there was only one left turn lane, one left-and-straight lane, one straight, and one right turn lane here. The city redid the intersection and the traffic light timing to make this work.

This is the way COS used to sign neighborhood speed limits. Now that there's a City Speed Limit sign on every entrance to the city, these are extraneous.

On Tejon St. looking north. The pillar in the middle of the northbound lanes rarely gets hit, but...

...the pillar in the southbound lanes gets hit quite often. When heading southbound, you drop down to get to this bridge. You don't get as much time to see the bridge as you do when headed northbound.

At the intersection of Chestnut Street, Fillmore Street/SH 38, and I-25. The thing that's interesting here is on the arrow signs on the wire spans: do you see the mini I-25 shield?

On Nevada Avenue headed southbound. This is the same track that goes over Tejon Street a few pics back. I like how the sidewalks have their own tunnels.

If you follow the tracks from the bridge pictures for a while, you get to this intersection. That's a steep drop down. There's even "Trucks May High-center" signs posted approaching these tracks. I took this picture on July 5, 2005: Look what happened just 3 days later. (Scroll down to the B.N.S.F. vs. B.E.E.R. section) As for all of that lost beer, all I have to say is "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" :)

Here's a shot of the crossing coming towards the last shot. That stop sign you barely see is the same one you see the back of in the previous picture.

As far as I know, there's never been any plans to widen this road, so I think the bridge builders thought it would be cheaper to make a straight bridge wide enough for the road to curve on than to make a curving bridge.

A typical view of an arterial street (Austin Bluffs Parkway, to be exact) in many of the new developments in Colorado Springs.

The dual-color signs have even made it to these signs in Colorado Springs. Lee Vance View is a private road leading to Cook Ministries.

Okay, let's break this down: we're on Tejon, which ends at this intersection. To our hard left is Ramona, to our soft right is Cheyenne Blvd., and the cross street is Cascade Avenue. Got it? No? Here's a Google Map of the intersection.