Workaround for ":" Query Strings

[Falpangaea]

I'm implementing a new redirect solution for one of our many horrible systems. Unfortunately, one of our regions is still using ":" in it's html queries.

Example:
/footwear/ to http://www.website.com/local/search?text=Shoe&q=Shoe:relevance:gender:MALE

Is there anyway to escape those ":" characters in the _redirects file so they don't get automatically interpolated as undefined?