Tejon Street conversion work postponed

If you were planning to head downtown Monday morning to watch traffic flow both ways on Tejon Street, put away the lawn chairs: The conversion of the one-way section between Bijou Street and Vermijo Avenue was postponed Thursday morning.

The reason is a weather forecast that calls for a 25 percent chance of rain and a high temperature of 47 degrees on Sunday, when most of the street work was to be performed.

City spokeswoman Carrie McCausland said converting Tejon back to a twoway street means painting a lot of new traffic stripes. Traffic engineers are worried the rain and cold weather would result in a white-and-yellow mess on the roadway.

Conversion work is rescheduled for April 6, with the road opening April 7.

The section of Tejon between Bijou and Vermijo was converted to one way in 1971, when traffic volume reached what was then considered a too-busy 11,000 vehicles a day.

Current volume now averages about 7,500 vehicles a day but would grow 30 percent to 50 percent when the street becomes two-way, city traffic engineers predict.

Despite the predicted increase in traffic, downtown business interests convinced the Colorado Springs City Council that allowing two-way travel will make it easier to navigate downtown. That should increase the number of shoppers and boost retail sales, they say.

Traffic engineers estimate the time to drive the five blocks in two-way traffic will increase by two minutes during the busiest time, mid-afternoon, and by a minute during the peak evening time, around 7 p.m.

If signals are timed correctly, motorists would spend an additional 15 seconds at intersections, traffic engineers say.

The cost to repaint street and parking lines, install signs and add signals will be about $125,000, an amount set aside in the 2007 city budget.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0197 or bill.mckeown@gazette.com