The subject of holiday traffic and how to avoid it is on the minds of many people.

As a reader, I feel the article printed Friday missed an important and timely opportunity to facilitate behavioral change among Interstate 70 travelers.

Pointing out that the Colorado Department of Transportation expects volume similar to 2019 and giving general common knowledge guidelines about when traffic is heaviest does little to empower travelers to navigate the I-70 corridor smoothly.

Certainly the Colorado Department of Transportation keeps hourly traffic counts at the tunnel. Average speeds in travel times at specific hours of the day are also kept.

This kind of detailed information would be far more helpful to travelers. In addition resources such as COTrip.org that provide real time traffic info are invaluable.

Additionally, recommendations for driving habits beyond remaining calm and courteous would be effective. Such as reminders to observe the two-second following rule between vehicles. Drivers would also benefit from hearing that maintaining slightly slower speeds even when traffic is flowing smoothly prevents the “slinky effect” of rapid acceleration deceleration which ultimately leads to longer travel times.

Thank you for covering this topic. I hope you’ll consider deeper journalistic reporting next time around.