It’s notorious among county residents who traverse it regularly, in part because of its former incarnation as Route 666 and because of the seemingly high volume of collisions.
A recent incident occurred on March 26, when Colorado State Patrol responded to a crash with injuries, after a vehicle attempted to pass a turning vehicle by using the shoulder of the road. A third, trailing, driver then crashed into the rear of the turning vehicle at full speed.
“The driver in car one made a bad pass,” said Cpl. James Proctor, of the Colorado State Patrol. “We had some serious injuries to passenger in vehicle two, a juvenile, but both drivers were seen and released.”
Although vehicle collisions receive a lot of attention, incidents with wildlife actually make up the majority of reported accidents, according to Colorado Department of Transportation data.
“The number of injury and fatal crashes is not characteristically high when compared to similar highways statewide,” said CDOT Region 5 spokesperson Nancy Shanks. “The majority (on the northern stretch) were collisions with animals, about 63 percent – that is quite high.”
According to CDOT’s recently compiled, unofficial crash data from 2014, there were only three accidents on the southern portion of the highway, with no injuries or fatalities reported. On the northwestern portion leaving Cortez heading to the Dolores County line, however, there were 76 reported crashes. Nine of those caused injuries, and a head-on collision caused a fatality. Of the 76 reported crashes, 44 were with wild animals, and four were with domestic animals.
CDOT has reported that deer fences and animal underpasses have mitigated collisions on other thoroughfares, said CDOT Region 5 traffic and safety engineer Mike McVaugh.
He notes that a large part of his job entails studying patterns and accidents along the Western Slope highways, and there really isn’t one that, by the numbers, is more perilous than others – including U.S. 491.
“I don’t have any one road that says this is a big, big problem,” said McVaugh. “I think a lot of what we’re running into is if you’ve been driving for a long time and get on a straight stretch of road, people start falling asleep, or are distracted, tired.. .. Several years ago, we put rumble strips down there, and that helped a bunch.”
April is national distracted driving awareness month, and CDOT, in conjunction with the Colorado State Patrol, has launched a social media campaign to source creative ways to combat the problem. According to a press release, the public is encouraged to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, using #DroptheDistraction to discuss the problem.
In terms of something more tangible for U.S. 491 commuters, Shanks noted that several intersection improvement projects are among the top 16 for funding this year. Listed projects include where U.S. 491 intersects with County Roads BB, P, S, and Lebanon Road. Two intersection-improvement projects on the Tier 2 list for funding include U.S. 491 and Empire Road as well as U.S. 491/160 and Canyon Drive.
No dollars have been secured yet because CDOT’s budget process for the new fiscal year hasn’t begun, McVaugh said.
“With the top 16, what we’ve been running into is completing one or two a year depending on our funding level, and how complex the project is, if it takes $1.2 million to fix that may be our entire budget for one year,” he said. “At this point, we just finished our traffic study on March 5, haven’t had a chance to start the budget, the ink is still drying on the paper.”