(Editor’s note: Former Pitkin County Commissioner/Aspen Councilwoman Rachel Richards sent the following letter to Shoshana M. Lew, the executive director of the Colorado Department of Transportation, on May 8. It has been edited for enhanced reader clarity.
) Good day Shoshana, I hope your spring is going well, knowing how full your plate is with the Blue Mesa Bridge closure and planned summer construction. I am writing to express my grave concerns with the direction the Aspen City Council hopes to take for the replacement of the aging Castle Creek Bridge. Specifically, responding to special interests opposed to use of the federally approved and mitigated Marolt transportation corridor, Aspen spent over $500,000 to determine “if a three-lane bridge could go where the old two-lane bridge is; what it might cost; how it could be constructed; and what could ‘ease’ the two 90-degree turns on Main Street leading to the bridge.
” I believe the cost estimates/design in the report exclude many crucial items from the public (overhead signalization for the reversible lanes) but it does estimate the extensive daily travel disruptions that construction of a new bridge in the current location will cause. City staff has now been directed to ask CDOT if the city can “get rid of the Record of Decision” and “self fund” the reversible three-lane concept without an Environmental Impact Statement analysis/evaluation to determine how it would work for the traveling public. Much has.