‘Fix the damn bridge’: Aspenites plead with city council to decide on Castle Creek Bridge
Regan Mertz | rmertz@aspentimes.com
Aug 13, 2024
Editor’s note: According to a new city of Aspen update, the lifespan standard set when Castle Creek Bridge was built in 1961 was 50 years. This story has been updated to accurately reflect the original standard.
Aspen Mayor Torre attends a city council work session on Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, in Aspen.
Regan Mertz/The Aspen Times
Aspen City Council further discussed Castle Creek Bridge at a Monday evening work session.
Over 30 Aspenites were present to make public comments regarding the bridge, with several wearing “Fix the Damn Bridge” stickers. The bridge is nearing its 50-year lifespan.
Project management staff gave presentations on traffic modeling, an economic impact analysis, and a funding assessment. Following these presentations and the public comments, city council members voiced their preferences on the bridge’s future plans.
City Manager Sara Ott recommended council members bring components for a motion to tomorrow night’s city council meeting.
What the council said
Council councilperson Ward Hauenstein said out of the five options presented in the traffic modeling plans, he prefers either a split shot or a preferred alternative method as opposed to a three-lane bridge due to potential emergency exits from Aspen.
During a public comment, one woman wore a ‘Fix the Damn Bridge’ sticker at an Aspen City Council work session on Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, in Aspen.
Regan Mertz/The Aspen Times
According to the traffic modeling presentation, the split shot removes bottlenecks in the inbound direction. It keeps connections to the existing bottlenecks in the outbound direction, and softens the S-curve. Roundabout queuing is worse under the split shot, but there are other solutions that could be explored to improve this.
The preferred alternative method removes several pinch points and adds transit lanes between Fifth Street and the roundabout. This method features a signal at Seventh and Main streets, which is a relocation of the signal at Cemetery Lane. General traffic conditions do not drastically improve in this current design. There are solutions that could be explored to provide better traffic flow for this option.
The three-lane bridge includes a bus queue jump or bus bypass at the roundabout.
“I’m in favor of the three-lane solution,” Aspen resident Richard Finger said. “First, the traffic flow will continue during construction, with little interruption. Second, the bridge is crumbling, and a new structure is needed immediately before a complete failure causes catastrophe. Third, the enormous environmental impacts of destroying the Marolt Preserve will not be tolerated lightly by the environmental community.”
One community present, however, said she did not want a three-lane solution.
During an Aspen City Council work session, different solutions to the Castle Creek Bridge were presented on Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, in Aspen.
Regan Mertz/The Aspen Times
“It’s hard for me to describe in under two minutes how I feel of a lot of my parents potentially losing their home with a three-lane shifted option,” Haylen Gonzalez-Pita said “Each home has its own stories, memories and future dreams. It’s not just private property. For those who think the straight shot would be an eyesore, I am sorry. I would be sorry to see it change, but I would be even more sorry if my parents lost their home 38 years.”
City Councilmember Sam Rose, who said this is the worst city council issue he has ever had to deal with, prefers a three-lane shifted bridge over the split shot and then the alternative method, adds transit lanes between Fifth Street and the roundabout.
“The emotions are high in the idea that if someone disagrees with you, that makes them an idiot or evil,” he said. “I’m sick of this rhetoric and want to recognize that the preferred alternative method I understand, and I do not think you are an idiot or evil but just someone with a different good faith opinion. Now I believe this is in the community’s best interest to put into a vote this November with language similar to the 2002 vote.”
Mayor Pro Tem John Doyle said he prefers the split shot and alternative method as his top two.
“Aspen matters very much to me. I’ve lived here 44 years now, and I’ve seen it go through some dramatic changes already,” he said. “We’re still dealing with the same bridge that was here when I first met the town, and it is failing.”
Bill Guth said his number one priority is just the replacement and restoration of the bridge, and focus on improvement of traffic flow through the Colorado Highway 82. Following after this is the split shot.
And Mayor Torre requested more information about three lanes versus two lanes on the bridge.
“But I agree that the priority is on fixing the bridge that we have currently, fixing or replacing,” he said. “But along with that, again, I don’t have enough detail about what does it really mean if we were to replace it with a two-lane bridge?”
Regan Mertz can be reached at 970-429-9153 or rmertz@aspentimes.com.