============ UPDATE   BELOW –  UPDATE BELOW ============

Remember the smashing fences in Rockrimmon? You know, the folks who live at the bottom of the hill where Vindicator Drive meets Rockrimmon Boulevard? They’ve lived with cars crashing into their yards for years.

Below is a map from FlashEarth.com of the area:

Two families – Mitch Logue and Donald and Colleen Kunecke, wanted the city to install guardrails to prevent future incidents like this one below:

I’ve written about it a couple times. Here is a link to a previous blog about the problem.

Well the Colorado Springs traffic engineer, Dave Krauth, said the intersection won’t accomodate guard rails. But he’s interested in testing sophisticated new traffic sensors to see if he can stop some of the carnage.

The sensors track cars entering an intersection as the traffic signal is about to change. Traffic engineers call this moment the “dilemma zone.”

 The sensors can delay the change to allow the cars to clear without stomping on their gas and plowing over the curb and into a fence and yard.

There’s also news on another bottleneck in the city. This one is a two-lane stretch of Dublin Boulevard between Bridle Pass Drive and Powers Boulevard. Here’s a look from FlashEarth:

Readers like Tim Little want to know why Dublin suddenly shrinks from four lanes to two and a stretch of pavement sits unfinished.

It’s a twisted tale of land that is annexed vs. unincorporated land stuck in El Paso County.

It is further complicated by rules about when a develop must build infrastructure like roads, curbs and sidewalks.

Krauth said the road will be widened as land is developed along the stretch. Already a short piece was widened but never attached to the intersection at Bridle Pass due to a property line issue.

The rest of the road won’t be widened until county land on the north side is developed and annexed into the city.

As a result, motorists are stuck with roads that look like this view to the east:

And this view looking west:

I now have an answer to the mysterious disappearing pavement.

The new black pavement was installed by the developer of a townhome project adjacent to Dublin Boulevard. However, it ends about 400 feet from the intersection to the west.

Why didn’t the developer just finish the job?

Tim Mitros of city engineering tells me the pavement ends at a property line. Developers are required to install infrastructure — sidewalks, curbs, gutters even roadway – adjacent to their projects. But not for a neighbor’s land.

In the case above, the pavement ends at the property line of the next parcel and the remaining 400 feet will be installed if and when the adjacent land is developed.

====================================================