Rio Lane, which curves into Rio Road, used to be a sparsely populated country road, but with growth on the eastern plains it’s become a popular shortcut between Highway 24 and Falcon Highway. Last month, Rio Road received its first coat of pavement.”We were told over a year ago that Rio Road has the highest traffic volume on any unpaved road in the county,” said Douglas Bruce, El Paso County commissioner for District 2. An average of 1,380 cars travel the road on a daily basis, he said.As reported in the June 2 issue of The New Falcon Herald, Rio Road also has been plagued by severe drainage problems. Bruce said the county was spending too much in maintenance costs. “It doesn’t make sense to spend $50,000 a year on maintenance for something that you could pave that would last 10 years or more with minimal maintenance. If you maintain it adequately, it would last 20 years or more,” he said.Paving Rio Road cost $150,000, Bruce said, adding that it was the low-cost alternative. The county would have preferred to straighten the road and correct drainage problems, but that would have cost as much as $2.9 million, said Richard Kramer, deputy director of the El Paso County Department of Transportation.Kramer said there is a risk in paving the road. “The drainage problems may wash out the road in a severe storm or the high levels of water in the area will infiltrate below the pavement surface accelerating the deterioration of the roadway,” he said.Bruce said he thinks the low-cost solution will pay off. “The project basically is paid for in roughly three years of maintenance,” he said. “Where else could you get a one-third annual return on your money?”Rio Road, which is 1.2 miles long, ended up at the bottom of the county’s road priority list; however, Bruce said he went to bat for Rio Road. “There were 24 projects on the list, and Rio Road was dead last … I spoke with the highway advisory commission and got it moved up to being tied for No. 3 on the list,” Bruce said.Residents are generally happy with the paving but still concerned about other potential problems.Verleen Hanes lives at the corner of Rio Road and Falcon Highway. She said she’s pleased with the paving but worried about speeders and drainage issues. If there are drainage problems, the water could “undermine the road,” she said. “The culvert under Falcon Highway isn’t big enough to take the water.”Hanes also expressed concern about increased truck traffic and excessive speeds. The posted speed limit on Rio Road is 35 mph, but Hanes said she has tracked cars going 70 mph.”A lot of kids live on this road, and there’s no shoulder,” she said. “There’s no place for them to walk. Somebody will be killed down here because drivers are going twice as fast as they should.”Lead-footed drivers could get in trouble, too, because of the curve in the road. There are warning signs about the curve, but Bruce said portable speed bumps could be installed to slow traffic. “You can’t install permanent speed bumps because they would get scraped off by the snow plows,” Bruce said. “I have no objection to portable speed bumps, assuming people don’t speed over them, lose control and end up in a ditch and overturn their car – not because of what they might do to themselves, but because of what they might do to somebody else.”Bruce said he doesn’t favor the installation of video cameras to deter speeders. “I’m not interested in that because I am not related to Big Brother,” he said. “I don’t want to have government cameras out monitoring people.” Bruce also said a blurred picture or a muddy license plate captured on the video tape could result in a citation being sent to the wrong person.”The sheriff’s office has very limited patrol resources,” he said “They do sometimes have an enforcement action, and they sit there and it’s like shooting ducks out of a barrel.”
