Construction delayed in Ute Pass

Drivers using Highway 24 will have to deal with construction for much longer than first expected.

The Colorado Department of Transportationtells us the deadline for flood mitigation work has been pushed back by nearly a month.

All four lanes near Manitou Springs were expected to be open in a couple of weeks. But now drivers may have to wait until the end of May.

“If it’s 5 o’clockand everybody’s getting off work, it’s kind of a hassle,” said Don Hubschmidt, who drives through the construction at least three times a week.

“Were you guys expecting to take this long?” asked reporter Bonnie Silkman

“Well not really, but you know things happen,” said Rich Gonser, the project engineer.

Spring is here but there’s fresh snow on the ground. The April storms aren’t just slowing down drivers on the road but it’s also holding up this flood mitigation project. There was a traffic lane switch scheduled over the weekend but it never happened.

“Pavement gets wet, you can’t re-stripe or paint the stripes on the road so we wanted to hold off until we get some dry weather and dry pavement. We don’t want to be too optimistic I guess,” Gonser.

A few drivers we spoke with are a little upset by the delay. But most think the extra time is worth it, so the floods don’t happen again.

“If they can get it done before the flood season because that was really bad when it, you know, lost a couple of lives they should do something to prevent people from getting hurt,” said Hubschmidt.

The traffic lane switch that was supposed to take place over the weekend is now expected to happen 7:30 p.m. on Monday.