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Postcards mailed last week to registered city voters included a link to a survey about the entrance to Aspen question.
Aspen City Council prompted the poll initiative to gauge public sentiment on the entrance project and its many alternatives. Probolsky Research created a survey that’s designed to help guide the city’s decision-making process on the issue.
The poll also is intended to provide information for a new environmental impact statement for Castle Creek Bridge replacement options to help explain why a new project may be needed.
Probolsky Research estimates the survey will take about 15 minutes to complete online. Aspen voters will be reached by phone if they don’t initially complete the survey online and will be given the chance to respond to questions on the phone. Probolsky is aiming for 300 responses.
The survey will ask questions about the importance of engaging in a community-led process to address the entrance to Aspen, sentiment on changes to Marolt Open Space recreational use under new entrance alternatives, and more.
It also will ask respondents to rank four entrance options that have been frequently referenced during conversations about the future for the Castle Creek Bridge. Respondents will be able to refer to the city’s mailer, which shows graphics of each alternative.
The city council hopes the survey will tell whether a certain entrance alternative is heavily favored by the community. Here are the four options:
The modified direct entrance to Aspen option, more widely referred to as the preferred alternative, is an option to replace the Castle Creek Bridge that was identified as the best option for the entrance to town in the 1998 Record of Decision. The ROD is a federal- and state-approved document that was developed through an Environmental Impact Statement process through the National Environmental Policy Act.
The preferred alternative would reroute Highway 82 over a portion of the Marolt and Thomas open spaces to cross Castle Creek and bypass the S-curves to merge directly with Main Street. The intersection at 7th and Main streets would likely get a traffic light.
Approved designs of the preferred alternative include two general traffic lanes, one in each direction, and lanes for light rail. City Attorney Jim True has maintained that if the city wishes to implement the preferred alternative with two bus lanes in place of light rail, it would need to hold a vote to allow the use of buses over city open space. Changes in use of city open space require a simple majority vote.
The plan also includes a 400-foot “cut and cover” tunnel that would go above the roadway to preserve open space and introduce a trail connection for the Marolt Trail.
The abandoned section of Highway 82 west of Cemetery Lane would likely be removed and restored as open space, but could be used for a future evacuation event. The remainder of Highway 82 between Cemetery Lane and 7th street would be converted to a local street.
Building the preferred alternative would require relocation of the Berger Cabin, built in 1947 by Fritz Benedict at 835 W. Main St. CDOT and the city already executed a permanent easement through the Marolt-Thomas property for the preferred alternative right-of-way, but an additional 0.8 acres would be needed on the private Berger property because the alignment would go over that property to connect with Main Street.
The entrance option known as the split shot would build a new two-lane road across the Marolt Open space and keep outbound traffic on the S-curves.
Traffic would flow into town on one lane realigned over the Marolt-Thomas property alongside one bus-only lane. One travel lane and one bus-only lane out of town would follow the existing Highway 82 alignment.
The two inbound lanes would cross over Castle Creek at the same location as the preferred alternative. A traffic light would likely be placed at the intersection of 7th and Main streets and would require relocation of the Berger Cabin.
The four lanes would split off west of Cemetery Lane. The split shot option also would likely include a cut and cover tunnel that would route the Marolt Trail over the tunnel in an attempt to minimize open space impacts. The roadway over the Marolt-Thomas property would be narrower than that of the preferred alternative.
The three-lane shifted bridge is the only option on the survey that would not impact the Marolt Open Space. Instead, it uses the existing Highway 82 alignment, replacing the existing Castle Creek Bridge with a wider, three-lane bridge.
The new bridge would include two general purpose travel lanes, one in each direction, a bus-only lane going out of town, and a sidewalk. A new bus-only lane would connect with the existing westbound bus-only lane on Highway 82.
Construction of a three-lane shifted bridge would shift it slightly south from its current location and allow two lanes of the bridge to remain open during construction. Shifting the current bridge and expanding it could require the acquisition of a home almost directly beneath the bridge owned by the Gregory family.
Preliminary designs for a three-lane shifted bridge include softening of the S-curves to improve traffic flow and safety.
The modified split shot design is the least fleshed-out of the four options on the survey for an entrance to Aspen alternative. It is similar to the split shot option, but would attempt to reroute Highway 82 in a way that would avoid the Marolt Open Space as much as possible before crossing over Castle Creek, bypassing the S-curves and connecting with Main Street.
During a Nov. 11 city council work session when council members reviewed the survey questions, Senior Project Manager Jenn Ooton said there may be a “difference of opinion of what that modified split-shot means.”
But the intent of the modified split shot is to maintain the same elements of the split shot — two lanes going into town on a new highway and two lanes going out on the existing Castle Creek Bridge — but using a different alignment than CDOT’s preferred alternative alignment.
Not all council members were in agreement about conducting a survey during their Nov. 11 work session. Councilman Sam Rose said he opposed surveying at this time because of two potential citizens petitions making their way to the city’s March municipal ballot. A group of citizens is looking to increase the vote threshold for changing open space from a simple majority to 60%. Another group of citizens is looking to affirm CDOT’s use of a portion of the Marolt and Thomas open spaces.
Council members also were unsure if they wanted to extend the survey to communities outside of Aspen. They decided only to survey Aspen voters, though members of the Elected Officials Transportation Committee wanted to extend polling to communities throughout the Roaring Fork Valley.
The city council decided to start with city of Aspen voters to especially gauge sentiment on the use of city open space, which Aspen voters may need to vote on at some point to approve the use of bus lanes.
The survey is just one of many steps the city will take as it looks to engage with a new EIS for the entrance to Aspen. The four alternatives on the survey will all require further engineering and aspects of them could change in that process.
“Through evaluation of these four (alternatives), we can look toward other variations and refinements,” said Mayor Torre. “But these four will give you a good sentiment about what people are looking for.”
“We’re really trying to find out people’s feedback on the information that’s in front of them,” he added.
Probolsky is hoping to receive about 300 responses to the poll. It is planning to present polling results to the city council during a Dec. 16 work session.