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Commuting through downtown Steamboat Springs got a lot more stressful with this week's commencement of a major Lincoln Avenue resurfacing project. But our short-term pain will net long-term gains for the city, its residents and its visitors.

Work began Monday on a project that, weather permitting, will continue through the fall, take a hiatus during the winter, and begin again in the spring. If all goes according to plan, the work could be done by June 2010. If not, work will be halted at the end of June and continued again in September 2010, once the summer tourism season has come to a close.

That might seem like an eternity to those who sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic Tuesday afternoon while heading west through downtown, but it's a project that simply must be accomplished while the funding is available. The total estimated cost is a little more than $5.6 million, with about $1.6 million coming from the city. The Colorado Department of Transportation awarded the project contract to Scott Contracting out of Henderson.

Among the project's components:

- Removing the asphalt road surface from Third to 13th streets and replacing it with concrete, which should last longer and be easier to maintain.

- Replacing underground utility lines

- Upgrading the drainage system, including culverts, inlets, gutters and concrete curbs

- Installing a box culvert at Lincoln Avenue and Seventh Street

- Adding bulb-outs at signaled intersections. The bulb-outs will reduce the distance pedestrians must walk to cross Lincoln Avenue.

- Installing Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant ramps

- Installing colored concrete crosswalks

- Adding a traffic signal at 11th Street

- Adding a left-turn arrow for westbound Lincoln Avenue traffic turning onto Fifth Street

- Adding a left-turn arrow for eastbound Lincoln Avenue traffic turning onto Third Street

- Installing fiber-optic lines to coordinate downtown traffic signals

During construction, traffic often will be reduced to one lane in each direction, as we've already experienced this week. The speed limit is reduced to 20 mph through the work zone, and delays of as long as 10 minutes are expected. That wasn't the case Tuesday, when it took some folks 40 minutes to make it from downtown to west Steamboat. Construction officials say those delays won't be the norm. We hope they're right.

"Whenever you start a new project, you're going to run into unforeseen conflicts, especially when you're coordinating with different agencies," project spokeswoman Jody Patten said. "We're working around the clock so we can come up with a solution so we don't have unacceptable delays."

We urge Scott Contracting and the Colorado Department of Transportation to get the kinks worked out this week. Multiple days of 40-plus-minute delays are not acceptable.

Finally, it's important to remember that not only will the construction test our collective patience - after all, living in Northwest Colorado makes it easy to forget what traffic really is - it has the potential to negatively affect many downtown businesses.

We urge residents to keep in mind that those businesses will remain open despite the work going on outside their front doors. And although Lincoln Avenue parking will be limited, that shouldn't stop us from using side-street parking and continuing to frequent our favorite downtown businesses. We'd hate for an important but inconvenient highway construction project to significantly impact the health of our downtown economy.