Officials outline steps to ease 8th St. construction impacts during rodeo week in Colorado Springs

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- When the bright lights of the Norris Penrose Event Center come on in mid-July, it symbolizes the start of the annual Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo.

It also generates more traffic congestion along 8th Street, particularly at the Lower Gold Camp Road intersection, which becomes a steep, winding hill that is one of the main routes to and from the rodeo.

And for the second straight summer, drivers also will cope with a major construction project on 8th Street, which currently involves a water main replacement near the intersection.

The associated traffic congestion can be occasionally confusing for drivers, with traffic reduced to one lane in both directions on the south side of the intersection, squeezed into what's normally the southbound lanes, and no left turn allowed at Lower Gold Camp to the rodeo.

On the north side of the intersection, one southbound lane is open for through traffic, and the other serves as a temporary left-turn lane to Walmart and other businesses.

All of that may give rodeo-goers cause for concern, but officials emphasize that there's little to worry about.

Police routinely conduct traffic control at the intersection during peak rodeo times; construction crews finish their work before rodeo traffic starts; and officials advise drivers to use 21st Street as an alternate route.

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