EOTC looks to expand entry into Aspen debate | News

The Elected Officials’ Transportation Committee is seeking more stakeholder involvement as it enters the Aspen discussion.

EOTC members held their first discussions as a committee on access to Aspen since the debate over how to replace the aging Castle Creek Bridge escalated again at the city level this year. The speech came after the Aspen City Council Aspen gives clearer instructions to city staff in September about how it wanted to move forward with the Castle Creek Bridge and after the Colorado Department of Transportation clarified what the city’s options were for next steps.

But as the city weighs starting a new federal process to explore bridge replacement options and move forward with a vote on its community, some members of the Pitkin County Board of Commissioners, the Aspen City Council and the EOTC, which consists of elected officials from the Snowmass Village Council — wanted to include their constituents in the conversation .

“It’s really difficult for important voices to come out from the thousands of people impacted by this corridor in the Aspen City constituency,” County Commissioner Kelly McNicholas Kury said at the EOTC meeting Thursday.

The city council has been discussing options for replacing the Castle Creek Bridge for months. Global engineering firm Jacobs Engineering in April offered four options for replacement of the bridge to council members. One of the options presented was the preferred alternative; A design that would reroute Highway 82 through the Marolt Open Space and connect it directly to Main Street. The preferred alternative was determined in a 1998 approval (decision record) by federal and state partners as the best alternative for replacing the Castle Creek Bridge, which was more than a decade past its 50-year design life.

Implementation of the preferred alternative would require a vote for the City of Aspen to allow the use of bus lanes over open space. In its current form, the design currently includes light rail lanes instead of buses. Council members went back and forth for weeks about adding the question to the November ballot, but instead I decided to wait and directed city staff to participate in a community vote on the entrance.

Aspen Senior Project Manager Jen Ooton told EOTC that the city has issued a request for proposals to survey firms and expects survey results in mid-December.

County Commissioner Francie Jacober said it would be helpful to hold similar polls or have conversations with community members outside Aspen, some of whom have to cross the Castle Creek Bridge every day. Aspen Mayor Torre said Aspen “won’t be running this alone,” but that the views of people who commute to the city may not reflect the views of Aspen residents and that voting on open space use will only have to be Aspen voters.

“We have to keep in mind that we’re talking about a third of a mile from the roundabout to Main Street,” Torre said. “The problem I have with addressing the commuters of, say, Glenwood Springs and their views is, ‘You know what we want, we want a four-lane highway, that’s what we want.’ “This doesn’t align with the goals and values ​​of this end of the valley, and it’s not something that meets the criteria of what we’re trying to do here.”

The city council also directed staff in September to begin work on a new environmental impact statement for entry alternatives to Aspen; These include two- or three-lane replacements at the site of the existing bridge and a split plan that would divert one lane of traffic over the bridge. Go to Marolt Open Range and grab another one at Castle Creek Bridge. One September letter to the city councilCDOT said options other than the preferred alternative would require a new environmental impact statement.

Part of engaging in a new NEPA process for a new EIS will include a scoping process to re-evaluate project needs, intentions, and community goals. It will also involve the participation of various stakeholder groups. City Manager Sara Ott said she expects the city’s stakeholder group to be much larger than it was in the 1990s when the 1998 ROD was produced.

The City provided updates on the Castle Creek Bridge to EOTC member organizations several times throughout the year. But the discussions at the EOTC (which meets annually) are several steps behind what’s happening on the Aspen City Council, McNicholas Kury said.

“To say it’s only a third of it concrete doesn’t reflect the hours lost by people in our community or the fear of being able to go to work when the construction project happens,” he said. “I think this is much bigger and broader than just figuring out how to cross a road in a field, so I’m really looking forward to this being a broader conversation.”

But Ott said the Aspen City Council is considering dedicating $2-3 million to a new NEPA process because council members feel they don’t yet have enough community input. He added that as the main funder of the project, the city council should be able to take these preliminary steps before bringing other communities on board.

Ott said he expects to request at least $1 million or more from the EOTC budget to support a new NEPA process.

A formal NEPA process takes 24 months, but with preparatory work, the city expects at least a three-year process.

The city is awaiting the results of a routine CDOT inspection of the bridge as it begins exploring options other than the preferred alternative.

CDOT completed its inspection of the bridge on Sept. 25 and expects a report to be available by November, a CDOT spokesperson told the Aspen Daily News. The last CDOT inspection in 2022 gave the bridge a score of 50.3/100. If the rating falls below this mark, it will be rated “underweight” and may be subject to weight restrictions or other measures. A “Poor” rating does not mean the bridge is failing; places the bridge on the CDOT watch list for operation.

“As your score starts to gradually decrease… you will be evaluated more frequently, you will start making bodywork improvements, not necessarily replacement, but potentially,” Ott said. “Frankly, in my view, when we look at the list and the bridges in the state, we won’t be the first.”

CDOT said it will implement the preferred alternative if the bridge fails. He also told the city council in his September letter that replacing the two-lane bridge (which would not require reopening the ROD) would be a temporary solution.