Within two weeks, the Colorado Department of Transportation will install a temporary traffic light above the Mancos intersection that has claimed two lives in recent months, Rep. Mark Larson (R-Cortez) said Wednesday, and lower the speed limit on that stretch of U.S. Highway 160 from 50 mph to 40 mph.

"What I’ve been told by (Region 5 Transportation Director) Richard Reynolds is that they’re going to put in a temporary light immediately and signage with a flashing yellow light to indicate you’ve got a speed-reduced area," Larson said from Denver during a telephone interview.

"I think (Reynolds) can take the speed down to 40, but I don’t think he’s going to be able to take it to 35 on the national highway system justification (standards), and I don’t know that I disagree with that."

CDOT said in a news release Wednesday that it would be reducing the speed limit from 50 mph to 40 mph in the 3/4-mile stretch of highway that includes the intersection, and would lower the advised speed limit to 35 mph. Crews will also be eliminating passing zones, upgrading street lights and improving signage at the intersection, the release said.

The juncture of Highway 160 and Colorado 184 has also claimed other lives in years past and town officials have been seeking additional safety measures from CDOT for decades.

But it was the March 16 death of 12-year-old Kiley Duran, who was struck by a westbound pickup as she tried to dash across the highway shortly before sunset, that sparked a mass demonstration at the intersection and finally lead to action.

The light will flash yellow on Highway 160 and red on Colorado 184, Larson said, until a permanent red/yellow/green signal can be installed within three or four months. That will involve widening Highway 160 to accommodate a left-turn lane, he explained.

"They’re going to have to widen the area where the bar ditches are on the south side (of Highway 160)," he said, "because it doesn’t make sense to put in a stoplight and have people backing up like they are now when someone wants to make a left-hand turn."

Even though the change may affect local businesses along the frontage roads that run parallel to Highway 160, Larson said "I don’t know how you put a light in there without controlling the traffic, and ultimately that’s going to happen anyway." CDOT’s long-term plan involves spending more than $6 million acquiring rights-of-way and redesigning the entire intersection, but work on that project won’t begin for at least another two years.

Larson, vice chairman of the House Transportation Committee, said he wanted to make it clear that it wasn’t his intervention that precipitated the action, but rather CDOT responding to a public outcry.

"My inquiries changed nothing," he said. "CDOT has done this on their own initiative —they listened to the townspeople and I had to do no pushing at all.