While some roads serving marquee Colorado destinations have been temporarily closed due to COVID-19, Pikes Peak Highway largely aims to maintain its summer status quo.

With Summit House construction still limiting parking atop the 14,115-foot mountain, vans are still scheduled to ferry visitors to the summit from spots along the highway, said Jack Glavan, manager of Pikes Peak-America’s Mountain, an enterprise of the city of Colorado Springs. Those shuttles are planned to start next Friday.

“The caveat is we’ve submitted a plan to the county health department to see if whether they will approve the plan or not,” Glavan said.

As of Friday morning, Glavan said he had yet to hear back. The Gazette also had not heard back from El Paso County Public Health regarding the proposals.

Glavan said the idea was “similar to what Mountain Metro and RTD transportation is doing,” citing transit operators of the Springs and Denver.

“Social distancing, capacity may be half,” he said, adding the goal would be to limit rides to fewer than 10 passengers. “And if we run it, the drivers would wear masks and so would the visitors. That would be a requirement.”

The shuttles would be disinfected after each trip, Glavan said, with “heavy cleaning” at the end of the day.

Health officials have said the risk of transmission is greatest in crowded, enclosed spaces. This month, the summer shuttle to the base of the Maroon Bells was deemed “not an option, at least not at this time,” as White River National Forest supervisor Scott Fitzwilliams told The Aspen Times. Shuttles to Glenwood Springs’ Hanging Lake are also on hold.

And the other Colorado fourteener highway has delayed opening until at least July.

In a news release, state and federal agencies operating Mount Evans Highway said it would be “difficult for tourists to practice social distancing,” with more than 200,000 people visiting the summit every season, typically from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend.

From May through September, Pikes Peak Highway has more than doubled that visitation in recent years, according to Pikes Peak-America’s Mountain data. Close to 600,000 came through the tollgate last year.

“Entrance fees are very important to us,” Glavan said. “It’s 60% to 70% of our budget. And since we’re an enterprise, we’re not tax-supported so we have to rely on that basically for operations.”

If shuttles aren’t permitted, “we’ll try to figure out how to let visitors access the summit during construction,” Glavan said, “but we haven’t finalized plans.”

If the highway is closed, “it would be tough” financially, he said. But he noted that reserve funds are in place and have been building thanks to lessons learned from the Waldo Canyon fire, which temporarily closed the highway in 2012.

“We’ve tried to build up that fund since we realized how fast tourism could go away,” Glavan said.