Station to help motorists get dialed in on highway conditions

Click to Enlarge Browse and Buy Post Independent Photos A new radio tower was recently installed along Interstate 70 east of New Castle. The station, 530 AM, will inform people of road and weather conditions and emergency situations, and should be active very soon. Post Independent/Kara K. Pearson

Dennis Webb
Post Independent Staff
July 31, 2006

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NEW CASTLE - A new radio station is debuting in western Garfield County, and for Interstate 70 motorists looking for timely and local travel information it could become an instant favorite.

The Colorado Department of Transportation has installed a radio tower adjacent to I-70 just southeast of the New Castle interchange to broadcast pertinent highway safety information.

The low-wattage station will broadcast the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather forecast out of Grand Junction. However, CDOT also will be able to use the radio to put out other information as necessary about traffic impediments due to construction, rockfall, accidents or other circumstances.

The station, which will be broadcast at the AM 530 frequency, also will be used to broadcast a warning whenever a nearby fog detector system is activated. Fog can be a problem on I-70 in the New Castle area, in part because of the proximity of the Colorado River. CDOT already has a fog detection system in place, along with variable message signs able to warn motorists of fog and other highway problems.

"It's just all aiming toward better traveler communications. It's just part of our intelligent transportation system," said CDOT spokeswoman Nancy Shanks.

CDOT makes fairly extensive use of the stations across the state. With the addition of the New Castle site, 13 will be in operation in CDOT Region 3 in western Colorado.

The stations only broadcast about a half-mile in any direction. Nearby signs are used to alert motorists to the existence of each station, and the frequency on which it is broadcasting.

CDOT officials hope the New Castle station will be operational by this winter.

The stations normally cost from $40,000 to $75,000 to install. In some cases the signal can be broadcast from an antenna on a building; in others a tower is required. The New Castle project is costing only about $5,000 because the tower is merely being relocated from its previous location in Gypsum, where CDOT officials saw less of a need for service because other stations also are in place in Eagle County.

CDOT operates stations in the region from its traffic control station center at the Hanging Lake Tunnels in Glenwood Canyon. In the Denver area, they are operated from a center in Golden.

Those linked to Golden also can be heard live over the Internet at www.cotrip.org. That capability is not currently available to the stations in western Colorado due to technological limitations.

CDOT learned how much some motorists valued the stations for weather information when it operated a temporary station in Glenwood Springs during the Grand Avenue Paving Project, which ended last year. The station was intended to provide information on GAPP, but some motorists complained that it overrode too much of the weather report, on which they had come to depend.



Contact Dennis Webb: 945-8515, ext. 516

dwebb@postindependent.com




The CDOT radio network
Some other local highway advisory radio stations and frequencies:

Aspen, 107.9 FM

Carbondale, 107.9 FM

Eagle 107.9 FM

Grand Junction, 106.7 FM

Parachute, 106.7 FM