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With a municipal election merely 15 weeks away, local tempers are flaring over how to address the aging Castle Creek Bridge since our current council can’t seem to get out of its own way, or ours. In August, Torre, John and Ward killed a motion to rebuild the aging Castle Creek Bridge before we contemplate building a new bridge elsewhere.
(Rather than fixing the one bridge we can’t live without - and actually improving traffic in the bargain - Torre took us down the rabbit hole to chase his fantasy of the long debunked “split shot.” This, despite comments from over 200 citizens and businesses urging council to Fix the Damn Bridge. Where we could have gotten a fast track on a new Castle Creek Bridge, now we face a 5-10+ year white board process that no one thinks the old bridge will survive. It’s a disaster.)
We currently have the Friends of Castle Creek, whose efforts I fully endorse and have highlighted HERE. Their ballot question would ensure that Aspen voters have a strong voice in decisions to sell or change the use of our cherished parks and open spaces. Not just Marolt—but all of them. Currently, the City can jettison any park or open space with just 50% + 1 voter who show up at the polls.
Even in Aspen, turnout for big city elections is typically 45% meaning less than a quarter of Aspen’s registered voters can decide the fate of high value parks and open space. The “Friends” hope to amend the Home Rule Charter to require a 60% +1 “super majority” vote. With the typical turnout, that’s still less than a third of registered voters, but an improvement nonetheless.
The idea is to keep our parks and recreation spaces from being radically repurposed by a narrow majority that represents a sliver of all locals. The Friends’ petition applies to all parks and open space but top of mind for most locals is the protection it adds to the potential desecration of the Marolt Open Space by a supersized straight shot—now 130’ and six lanes of asphalt. (More on that behemoth, below.)
If you have not yet signed and want to, please contact sue.atkinson@comcast.net or 970-948-6798 before Friday.
And now we have another petition to add a second ballot question in March - spear-headed by divisive class warrior Rachel Richards, that will give CDOT, by fiat, full control to build whatever it wants, unchecked, across the Marolt Open Space. In effect, it’s an anti-democratic blank check for CDOT to ignore everything already on the books, roll in the bulldozers and build what it desires.
DO NOT SIGN THIS PETITION.
Here are some important design alternatives and notes on what Rachel proposes. See renderings at the bottom.
THE STRAIGHT SHOT:
In 1996, Aspen voters passed a ballot measure allowing Hwy 82 to be realigned across Marolt with 4 conditions, each of which would be over-ridden with Rachel’s plan:
· A 2-lane parkway across the Marolt Open Space plus light rail.
Rachel’s folly is a 130’ wide 6-lane freeway that features 2 dedicated bus lanes, 2 general traffic lanes and 2 twenty foot shoulders. Note the same 2 general traffic lanes as what we have today providing zero improvement to traffic congestion.
· A 400’ cut-and-cover tunnel across the open space, preserving the Marolt meadow. With Rachel’s plan, CDOT can build whatever it wants, with or without a tunnel.
· Protection of historic assets (the 2.5 acre historic district including Holden-Marolt Museum and the Marolt Open Space). Rachel removes this condition in her blank check to CDOT. Move over community garden, Nordic trails and paraglider landing zone!
· A second public vote when the costs and design are known. Rachel wants CDOT to have full control to do whatever it wants, with no local voice in a new EIS design process.
*In the absence of light rail, the 1996 Straight Shot is off the table. There is no rendering.
THE PREFERRED ALTERNATIVE:
Following the 1996 vote, multiple affected jurisdictions signed on to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in 1998 memorializing the Straight Shot, but adding “temporary bus lanes” at CDOT’s request. The catch is, Aspen voters did not approve the bus lanes bait and switch (the word “bus” appears nowhere in the 1996 ballot question).
Today, the “Preferred Alternative” has morphed further to include a cornucopia of additions such as a 130’ asphalt roadway and a giant “land bridge” arch over Marolt in place of the “cut and cover” tunnel - all to create some bogus wildlife corridor that redirects animals away from an imaginary migration route over to the golf course. Worst of all, Cemetery Lane will only be able to turn LEFT, come eastward into town and head west at a new 7th Street stoplight. And the West End gets pummeled with still more “Sneakers” that back up the neighborhood for hours every weekday afternoon. (The PA is a moving target that gets worse with each iteration.)
See today’s version of the Preferred Alternative that contains numerous elements not approved by Aspen voters below.
THE SPLIT SHOT:
With this design, the Marolt Open Space becomes a highway median with 2 inbound lanes over Marolt crossing a new bridge connecting with Main Street, and 2 outbound lanes on the existing Hwy 82 corridor. Notably, Cemetery Lane will only be able to turn RIGHT, going out to the roundabout before they can come back into town. The two inbound lanes consist of one general traffic and one exclusive bus lane - again no improvement to the two general traffic lanes we have now. And a pitiful few seconds of time savings for RFTA riders (that is IF they don’t get a redlight at the new 7th street signal).
Same on the outbound two lanes - one general traffic and one bus lane: no added traffic capacity.
See Torre’s fantasy below. And the version that Rachel emphatically conflates with other versions in her published lies. The Split Shot most certainly affects Cemetery Lane traffic and was piublicly debunked as a failure by Jacobs Engineering on 8/5/31.
THE 3-LANE SHIFTED BRIDGE:
A 3-lane shifted bridge in the exact location of the existing Castle Creek Bridge is the ONLY way to increase traffic capacity and speed cars out of town in the afternoon. It’s the only plan that gives the West End some relief from The Sneak. By building one lane at a time, we can keep two lanes open during all phases of construction. NO detours and “minimal traffic impact,” according to Jacobs Engineering on 7/31/24. This option does not require any open space and would be constructed in the existing right of way. No public vote is required.
Rachel is desperately trying to take the power from the people. Does it get any more un-democratic?
There are several other notable considerations when thinking about any new bridge configuration that necessitates access across Marolt:
· There WILL be a new stoplight at 7th and Main, backing up traffic on Main Street and sending more cars into the West End.
· This stoplight is clearly not a fix for “idling traffic” concerns.
· The bus lanes MAY save seconds, but only if they hit the new light right.
· The Castle Creek Bridge will have to be replaced IN ANY CASE to accommodate Cemetery Lane traffic.
· The City will forever be responsible for maintaining the Castle Creek Bridge.
· The City no longer claims “the straight shot” or “preferred alternative” will be a traffic solution. Now it’s an “infrastructure solution” without a traffic fix.
· CDOT will never approve more cars entering town. Their goal is and always has been to push people onto RFTA. And where would more cars go once they make it into town?
· There is a long local voting history on the topic. Read it HERE.
What is Rachel thinking? If you know Rachel, you know exactly why she refuses contemporary solutions and new technologies, preferring a 20th century asphalt road in a modern era of innovation to solve a 21stcentury problem:
RACHEL. SIMPLY. HATES. RICH. PEOPLE.
It’s class warfare, pure and simple. Rachel’s biggest nightmare is a RFTA bus idling behind a construction vehicle, her metaphor for “the rich” slowing down “the people.” Never mind that the Straight Shot /Preferred Alternative dump on the West End, Cemetery Lane and the vibrant neighborhood of locals at the West end of Main Street (including more than 40 APCHA units). It flips off Marolt lovers, history buffs, community gardeners and on and on, misappropriating the crown jewel of Aspen’s parks system.
The greatest good for the greatest number of people? Not Rachel’s goal. A traffic solution to help commuters? Nope. The report was written in 1998 and Rachel’s hell-bent on seeing it built before she dies.
Despite her collaboration with respected long-time locals who we all wonder what they are thinking, Rachel’s CDOT petition is undemocratic and propaganda-filled, and portends a frightening legal quagmire that will only further slow the process.
She and the others circulating this undemocratic petition can believe whatever they want, but when they send emails and publish letters to the editor with known falsehoods, this is LYING.
DO NOT SIGN THE PETITION.
  
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January 21