Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. May 15th and it is Good afternoon. Today is Thursday May 15th and it is 4.01 p.m. This is a meeting of the elected officials transportation committee. I am going to first take roll call so to make sure we all have what do you think we do? Okay, I'll start with snowmass, Maryland's the shank. I'm here, Sessley-D'Angelo. Tom Fritzstein. make sure we all have corn, what do you think we do? Okay, I'll start with snow mass, Maryland's the shank, and here, Sessley, DeAngelo, Tom Fritzteen, here. Susan Morrell, here. Picking town, telling the Nicholas Curse. Two seconds, I'm not sure if I'm going to have audio yet. Sure. Thank you. Freeze. Yep, turn right now. Freeze Okay, we should be said thank you. Okay, do I need to do it over again? I forgot okay Callie McClick list curries here, Francie Jacoba Greg Poshtman here Jeffrey Woodruff here Patty Clapper is not here. City of Aspen, Mayor Rachel Richards, Christine Benedetti, John Doyle, Bill Gooth, Sam Rose. Great. The first item on the agenda, well before I start, I just want to say welcome to the new members. I know that Cecil is not here yet, but to Christine, we're so happy to have you and we're happy to have you back, Rachel. You're turning. So welcome back. Thank you. And then I also just want to say it is a very full agenda. I want to honor everybody's time. So and I know everybody has commitments., I'm hoping that everyone can make their comments effective but briefly and I'm not going to be afraid to cut you off if you're going too long because I just want to make sure we get through all the things we need to get through. Can I know that Jeffrey Woodruff, our newest commissioner, this is his first use. Oh, sorry, I need to meet this too, I'm sorry. I even wrote your name down. I just can't see very well. I'm so sorry I'm gonna make it up to I'll bake you more cookies. Okay all right so welcome we're happy to have you and everybody in here come Sessley. Come on in this is Sessley everybody. No come on in. All right first item on agenda is going to be approval of the October 24 action minutes. Does anybody have any questions or changes to the minutes? If not, I would take a motion to have two small typos. No, go for it. At the top, we're at list the attendees. There are five people from Snowmass, but are wrote number four. It says number four. And then, there's no page numbers. But back in, right above the city of Aspen Transportation Update says Chair poshman asked for a roll call vote to improve the budget and while the budget can always need to be improved. I believe the word was approved. Thank you. Thank you. You're going to get rid of that for me. I know. Okay. So any other changes, questions. If not, I would take a motion to approve. So moved. And a second. I'll second. OK, and then I think Christine and I will be abstaining because we were not here. We were not present the last meeting. OK, perfect. I will, I have to do a roll call load on it. Mayor Lissaschenk, yes, Cecilia de Angelo, you weren't here. So you can abstain, I guess. Tom Fritzstein. Yes. Susan Rolt. Yes. Kelly McNickless-Kerry. Yes. Francis, not here. Gras- can abstain, I guess. Tom Fritstein? Yes. Susan Roelts. Yes. Kelly McNickless-Kurie? Yes. Francis, not here. Greg Postman. Here. And Jeffrey was in here, Eastern. OK. And then, Sidi-Vaston, John Doyle? Yes. Bill Gooth? Yes. And Sam Rose. Oh, thanks a lot. Oh, thanks. Oh, yes Great. All right. That is the Minutes next up is public comment and this will be for non-agent items So I know Tony you're here and we have someone in the back that's here Tony you want to come up? Come on up we are limiting public comments to three minutes per person. If you can just state your name. Hello. My name is Sam Gimus. I live in Carbondale, Colorado. And I've been seemingly bothering Mr. Pushman at all of his meetings. I've been going to Raffta and Picking County and now here. I want to share data on what I've been gathering for my e-bike experiment hypothesis commuting from Carbondale to Aspen. I've been timing myself and I've been breaking the law going fast on this be limit but my hypothesis that it would be as quick most days to get to Aspen as it would be a car, concerning all the traffic and construction. And here's my data. And luckily, I moved a month ago to Blue Lake, seven miles closer. So I have two data points real quick. From the back side of Carbondale, by the high schools where I used to live, it would take me an hour and 10 minutes to get to Buttermilk parking lot is where I work. So not all the way into Aspen, but I would have to go, you know, speed down, Rio Grande Trail, come back up but I would have to go, you know, speed down Rio Grande Trail, come back up, and I would have to reverse and come back like, I would go up Cemetery Lane and then backtrack. So that would take about 12 minutes exactly out of the way. If I had a direct shot, I could get to work 12 minutes faster. So that brings it under an hour. So now yes, it is the average commute time for a car. And each way, every time I did it, I arrived within 45 seconds of... brings it under an hour. So now, yes, it is the average commute time for a car. And each way, every time I did it, I arrived within 45 seconds of my destination. So it's super consistent, right? And a car could be 35, 45 minutes longer. I can't get to work on time. Boom. So I've got that data point. Then I moved seven miles closer to Blue Lake. And I'm like, sweet. I'm definitely going gonna break an hour. Go do the thing take the trail there's no connecting trail and it took an hour and ten minutes the exact same time than it did seven miles further away. Why is that? You leave Blue Lake you head down towards the tree farm you take that frontage road that, and then that frontage road stops at that Christian daycare center. And point six miles ahead, you can see where you can connect it, and therefore I don't have to make any turns. Because as of right now I've got to take the tree farm underpass over to Whole Foods 82, snake around the parking lot. Then I have to continue pass like lakeside through those communities. Then I have to go through SkiCo's time town, trespass, go to the back of the lot, there's a gate that's not locked, I, unlocks... Then I have to continue past like lakeside through those communities. Then I have to go through ski co's tiny town. Trespass. Go to the back of the lot. There's a gate that's not locked. I unlock it. I get off my bike. I walk through. I turn around. I close the gate behind me. I go back under the highway. Do a couple of other things. And then I get back on the path. That is a 15 minute loss of time, probably a 10 minute loss of time, on top of the 12 minutes that I had to do when I turned around a cemetery lane. That is 22 minutes, minus an hour and 10, that's 48 minute commute. That is the average time, even, that's a fast time for a car commute there. Come me off anytime, I'm gonna be respectful of y'all's time. So So when I originally presented this with Raffton, Pika County, I was like imagining a e-bike lane highway thing that we got to build. But since you're doing trail closures right now on that part of the Rio Grande, it closed it off. And I was like, oh crap, I've got to get to work. I'm going to be late. And I had to take the frontage roads. and it hit me, a break in the case, finally. Let's consider the frontage roads that are already built with a post-it speed limit of 25 miles an hour to have e-bike access and then boom all we have to do is connect point six miles to start and we've got an entire e-bike highway to get parents and friends and family around safely around town thank you you made it You were just a few seconds over. Thank you. We'll be on the track. Thank you, Sam. We appreciate that. Thank you for coming. We really appreciate it. Tony, right when you start talking, I'll start the clock. Thank you. Thank you. I'm not going to say anything to us. Sit down. I'm going to say something to us. I could take me 30 seconds. What was that? Well, seconds are important. All right. Okay, so here. I'm not going to say anything to us. Sit down. I think I could take me 30 seconds. Well, seconds are important. All right. OK, so here we go. For the record, my name is Tony Cronberg. And first, I'd like to thank everyone in this room. All of our elected officials, all the staff, everyone. Because we are going to make a decision on the entrance to ask when that's going to work. We went, ooh, sorry about that. I have a little cough going. But what has become apparent to me is that we're all not on the same page as to the process involved in deciding whether an EIS or re-evaluation is needed. What I would like to do is before I make my little comment, there's a couple of things. I gave you a couple of handouts here because I want to make sure we're all on the same page. The very first top page is the vision statement for the Electro-Efficials Transportation Committee. The second handout is a ballot question. What I've seen happening a lot lately is only the first part of the ballot question is being referred to. And the second part of it where it says that the Colorado Department of Transportation and Sutilization of the Merlt and Thomas Open Spaces was voted approved, but also any new and future record of decisions resulting from an environmental impact study which designates the Preferred Alternative under the National Environment Policy Act. That is crucial. A lot of people are coming forward to say they want to have a re-evaluation. They're not quoting the second part of it, which is the fact that we can also have, for the voters, the EIS, a new one that that can also be brought forward. Then one of my goals is connectivity. We have not talked about connectivity. That is a major goal. We need to connect, according to the record of decision, from Ruby Park and downtown Aspen, believe it or not, the highway component just goes to the buttermilk. The transit section of it, which is the light rail goes from downtown Ruby Park to a server center road. So we're missing the gap, the highway connection in front of the airport to brush creek. That involves a new EIS. That changes the scope of everything. The other thing is, a lot of people, I don't think I understand this, a re-evaluation. We want to have control of our local decisions. Re-evaluation, no local control whatsoever. No public comment is allowed according to the federal government. No public comment on a re-evaluation. So we're stuck just going out to buttermilk. We don't get the airport included or to brush creek or to snowmass. If we have an EIS, full total public comment, then we get to include the airport all the way to brush creek Anything else that we can think of that will be we'll have the Opportunity comment on it the other thing that really concerns me as a preferable turner of people saying we need two bridges We need two bridges coming out of Aspen. Yeah, we do we need two bridges going to to the roundabout. A new EIS will give us two bridges to the roundabout. The current professional alternative, we get one bridge through a tunnel to the roundabout. The existing Castle Creek Bridge gets shut off and in kind of emergency, everyone's got to go onto the Clay and Flatts Road road and Jacobs engineering as well as a bunch of other engineering studies have said that's not a road to handle, that's a rural road. So I just want to kind of make sure that we're all on the same page. And then, okay. We have time, Tony. The rest of it, I can bring up for it when we have it. Thank you so much. Thank you so very much. Thank you. Do we have any other members and audience for public comment or anyone online? I'm not seeing any. So I'm going to go ahead and close the public comment period and on agenda items. The next item on the agenda is going to be the Raffta Zero Fair pilot program funding support. And this is a public hearing so I'm going to go ahead and open the public hearing and I know we have Dave here from Raffta. I don't know if anyone else needs to come up, but I'll let you take it away Thank you. I'm gonna try it is not wanting to share. Shared earlier. Just hit the share button, right. Well, I can... Do this. It's cookies, man. It's very good. Stop sharing with respect. You should throw the screen on it, then. Go back to... The pain is something doing this. I'm gonna start talking to you now'm a chief operating officer clearly not the chief IT officer with RAPDA. So I'm going to try to keep this, I've got a short presentation for you. Which one is it now? Is it the power point? Could do entire sprain. Oh, yeah, would do entire sprain. Hmm. Sure. All right. I can work it from the end or two. Not ideal. I love this. You want to run a group right there? That's good enough. Thank you. So I'm going to try to keep this shorter since we've been in front of you as boards and councils already. So I know there's some people who weren't there so feel free to jump in with any questions or anything. So Rafta has been planning on moving forward with a free pair, free, fair pilot starting in fall 2025. And this stems back to our 2023 climate action plan. And as a part of our climate action plan identified, reducing or eliminating fares in order to increase ridership as a way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In order to move in that direction, however, we did, we've realized over time that we need to do a pilot in order to collect data to see how that would impact us operationally. So that pilot is what we're looking at here in fall 2025. So I know can't read everything on this, I do have a cursor on our fair zones on the right here, but I did want to point out regarding our current fair structure. So we currently have eight free fair zones. And each of these colors represent, these colored boxes here represent one of our free fair zones. So we've got three primary ones. One is you're all familiar with is Aspen Snowmass, Woody Creek. We also have basalt, willets, and, and algebra, and then Glenwood Springs going all the way from Spring Valley Road down to West Glenwood. Then we've got a few smaller ones, including the Aspen Village Zone, Carbondale Zone, which includes the circulator, and then on the hog back we've got New Castle, Silt, and Rifle. So to go between those zones, the first zone is $2 each zone after that is a dollar. That's the cash fare. We've got a number of different discounts that I'm happy to talk about if you're interested. But the cash fare is $2 for first zone, $1 for each additional zone. So that means that it's $8 that you're going from one end of our system all the way to the other and paying cash. So what we're looking at for this pilot is eliminating those fares between those zones. We are looking at a timeframe of 60 days to do this fair-free pilot between October 1st and November 30th, and we chose that timeframe specifically because it is a time period where we have the lowest ridership. And the reason we're looking at a time when we have low ridership is we're anticipating an increase in riders on our system. And if we did it during our peak times when we already have congestion issues particularly during peak time or say summer winter peak seasons and then during peak times during those seasons, we were very concerned that we wouldn't be providing the level of service that we want to be providing. So we're looking at the fall system and the benefit there is that it'll give us a sense of elasticity or essentially how many more riders we can expect on each route during certain times of the day. And that will give us an idea what to expect if we did want to program this regularly. So if we did want to say do a regular free fare in each spring and fall season for instance or if we wanted to roll it out during one of our peak times, what that would mean operationally, how many more buses, how many more drivers would we need, and we would be able to program that being more informed. Now clearly one season to the next there are obviously variables and we're not going to pick up on all of those variables with one season But we feel as though we'll be able to pick up on some of the dynamics within our valley With even just this 60-day pilot So Looking at the touch down a number of these bullets some of the items that we're looking to measure here in order to determine how it's impacting our system. So we'll be measuring boardings and lightings. We do that all the time anyway through our automatic passenger counters. So everyone going on the bus, going off the bus is counted. Now we don't know who that individual is. We just know that someone got on, someone got off. And then we also are able to track bus load. So what that means is how many people are on the bus between certain stops. And that's something we're also currently able to track and we'll continue to track that. One of the benefits to particularly, boarding the lightings and load is that we do that all the time so we can compare back to 2024 with our 2025 numbers. so we'll be able to see specifically between stops and routes and ad stops what those differences are specifically impacted by that reduction or elimination of fare. We're also looking at doing an onboard survey. So we just actually completed our tri annual onboard survey this last March. We got the results back from that. We're going through that process now. But we're looking at doing something similar just for this pilot period in order to survey people who are on the bus to get a sense of why they're there. You know, are they a regular user that would have been there anyway? Are they writing more often now because it's free or are they a new user? So trying to get that data is really important. And I think that that is data that we feel is best achieved through a non-board survey. And then we're also able to ask about origin and destination. And this is something that's typically very difficult for us to obtain, except for going out and talking to people. So knowing whether someone is starting Missouri Heights for instance and connecting through to snowmass, making all of those connection points is very difficult with our typical tracking technology. So that is one benefit to doing an onboard survey versus the other technological solutions then we will also be monitoring our parking rides. And this is something that we haven't done historically. So we do need to achieve a baseline before hands. We need to do surveys before the free fare pilot, during free fare pilot, and after free fare pilot. And honestly, this is something that we need to start programming regularly. So this has pushed us in the direction of say, hey, we need to make sure that we're doing this all the time. We have anecdotal evidence that says that, say, a parking lot's full in a specific time, but we don't have that data to back it up. And then looking at pilot opportunities and constraints for the specific pilot period, obviously, the big opportunity that we have here is the collection of information to know how it impacts our operations. During the 60-day pilot we're looking at an increase in ridership which we expect would result in a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions. Some of the constraints that we're looking at I include the financial aspect and I'll hit on this here at the last slide. So by not collecting fares for that 60 days, we're anticipating a loss of about $550,000 in fare revenue. And we have discussed this with each of the boards and councils. This last Tuesday, the city of Aspen did commit up to $275,000. So that is 50% of the 550 that we need to be able to offset those fares for this pilot. Determining that fair revenue was also an important piece of this that I didn't mention before. And understanding what that financial impact is if we did want to roll that out and really program this in the long term. Some of the other challenges that we could have because it is free fare, we're not sure what the ridership increase may be. So even though it's fall and where it is part of one of our lowest times, we could still see occasionally some standees on buses, which we don't typically see in the fall season. We do still track our occupancy load on those buses. And we have an idea of which times and which buses tend to fill up during the various seasons. We back those buses up. So when you see, say, particularly carbon-dough park and ride, sometimes in basalt, you'll see a bus just sitting there on the side of the road those are those are backup buses those are sitting there to be deployed if one of the buses going up is full and we're able to get those out. Another challenge that we have is refunds. We've already started actually selling season passes for spring, summer and fall. So that is those are season passes that people are paying for for that full time that includes those 60 days. So we're currently working with our finance staff to figure out a way to be able to refund that back to those people who may purchase their passes if this pilot goes forward, who purchase their passes and expect to have paid for that time. So we are looking at providing that back to customers and we're working through a methodology to do that. As some background in terms of what other agencies have seen when they've gone fair-free, luckily we're in Colorado and as you probably have all heard over the last couple years, the state has put out grants to help reduce ozone and has encouraged agencies to go fare-free. We haven't taken advantage of that because it was a three-month pilot in the middle of summer, which is one of our peak times. And over the last few years, we've had difficulty being fully staffed on the operation size. We weren't confident that we would be able to accommodate the demand that we would see, particularly as we started seeing numbers like this. So, veil transit, when they did their fair free, they saw an increase of 38%. Grand Valley transit saw 31% and Mount Metro saw 35%. Now it's important to remember that these are averages spread out over that entire three months. So that doesn't mean that for every route, for every trip saw that increase. Some were somewhere higher, somewhere lower. And that's part of that elasticity that we really need to measure to understand how it will impact us operationally throughout our entire service period. Based on other research that's been done, elasticity is range between 20 and 50 percent, so it's a huge range range and so planning for a 50% increase in passengers is very different than planning for 20% increase. So we really need to know where we fall in there. And then looking at the request here today, as I mentioned, one of the big hurdles that we have deploying this fall is the back filling that fair revenue which I mentioned is $550,000. It's estimated at $550,000. The city has contributed as committed up to 275,000 so that's 50%. The request here today is for that remaining $2,000 remaining $275,000. So you know we are talking to other communities. We're talking to down valley communities and I expect that we will have, shouldn't say expect, I would hope that we have at least one more contribution. If that does come in I would say if the OTC is generous enough to fill that the remaining $275,000 do an up to amount so that if we do receive other contributions we're able to reduce that. But knowing that we have that funding will allow us to move forward this fall. If we're not able to secure the funding our backup plan is to go to 2026 so we're looking at about a year delay trying to get the pilot out. So that's that's why we're trying to push this forward right now so that we have the data and we're able to continue moving forward. Because we have heard a lot of enthusiasm from our board in particular to see movement on the fair free and we're trying to get that going. So that's everything I've got. I'm actually not the program manager or project manager on that. That is David Johnson. He is online virtually. So if I'm not able to answer the question, David will be able to chime in as well. Great. Thank you so much for the presentation. I will open it up to any member comments and then we'll go to the public for public comment if anybody has it. Greg, any comments? Thank you, Melissa. I appreciate you calling me first. The chair raft board. I'm grateful this came to us. Now, we have been hearing about this and talking about it for quite a while. I think our board has seen it a couple of times at least. I just want to encourage you all to support it as you'll be told by your board members. I think our board was pretty enthusiastic. I look at it as a way to explore flattening the demand curve for people on the highway. This could actually make a substantial impact on the amount of cars on highway 82 if we sort this out. So full speed ahead please, thank you. Great, thank you. Wait till. Yes, thank you. I will second Greg's remarks And as you can tell by our vote at the City Council to allocate $275,000. We are in full support of this And I'd like to really point out a comment that Francie has made that it struck me that if we're really just dealing with Transportation quote at the entrance to entrance to Aspen or airport into town, that's not doing much for the traffic light in basalt or L.J. Bell or carbon-dale or the larger congestion. But this is an approach that could help the larger system reducing traffic, no matter if they're coming all the way to Stomas Village or Aspen or whatever. I think it's very important that people get in that habit and think about it. They may just now live in Newcastle, but the next time they may be living in Glenwood or Carbondale and coming all the way up Valley. So I really encourage this board to support it as well. Thank you. Thank you Rachel. Any other? Francie? Yeah. Could you tell us what the budget is? I mean, And we forward? That's the bottom line right so how much money do we have? The EOTC. Yes. I think Linda would have to answer that We have a reserve balance of just over 16 million at this point and is it designated for anything else? No Thanks signated for snowmass, isn't it? Snowmass is included in that. Right. So some of it is designated. Okay. The transit center. And also, I think this is an... Yeah, go ahead. Do we have a forum? Yes. I thought we needed a majority from each board. We have somebody online that I'm going to see. We do. Bell. Great. Bells online. Yep. So, and Sam. We'll say him was. I don't know if he tell us, but yeah. We do have corn. We establish that. Any other board comments? Sessley. Yeah. This is really exciting and thank you guys for putting this together and I just was wondering if you could tell us or if David could tell us about what the If this what is success? What does that look like and then what would the next steps be if this program or this pilot is to be successful? It's actually funny. You mentioned successes. I there was one of my one of my slides that I pulled out just for the sake of time. Oh Oh, thanks. It's in the back edge. So it's in the back pocket slide. So success to us is seeing those increased boardings, having minimal impacts on bus capacity as a part of the pilot for the pilot's success, having minimal requirements for additional buses and a positive customer experience. So we're really don't want to see our big hesitation is having overcrowded buses and not being able to fulfill the services that we are here to provide. So if we're not able to do that, then that bumps it down into an unsuccessful program and something that we need to then plan for. So the next steps are really doing this, doing this pilot, getting the information, seeing what our elasticity is over time and throughout the system, and understanding what we would need to do in order to do this, actually program it. So if we are able to program it, then we would start looking at, you know, what do we need in terms of additional resources? Is it just moving around bus times? Do we need additional buses on specific routes? You know, what does that mean to our system in order to accommodate it? The other piece too is Greg alluded to is seeing whether I know we're doing fair-free for the entire day. And there's a number of reasons why we landed on doing the entire day as opposed to doing just a period of the day. But even doing the full day, we're very interested to see if we draw people to the system more prominently during certain times. So we might still see that impact, even though we made it full free fare for the entire day. So that is something else we wanna see. So if, say, a certain time is more attracts, more customers than another time, specifically fare free, then maybe we can work on figuring out a system where we can target lower or reduced fares during that specific time, for instance. So there's a number of different directions it could go. Honestly, we just don't know what the data might yield to be able to say for sure in terms of what the next steps are. David, am I correct if somebody's commuting from Newcastle to Aspen to go to work and go back other than maybe they have a seasonal pass and it's less money but window price it's $16 a day. Is that correct? $8 each way? From Newcastle. Yeah. That's from Rifle. I say Rifle, I've just pick it. Yeah, sorry, I was at the start. That's substantial on a money. Yeah. It is. Yeah, if you're paying the cash fare, it is for sure. Yeah. Now, something that's interesting about our system is that we do have a lot of, particularly, our customers that are coming up Valley, a lot of them have passes through their employer. So those people won't be impacted by free fare. They're not going to be, I shouldn't say they won't be swayed by free fare. They're already just showing their pass, and they're getting a... passes through their employer. So those people won't be impacted by free fare. They're not going to be, I shouldn't say they won't be swayed by free fare. They're already just showing their pass and they're getting on whatever they want. So that's one of the dynamics that we really need to measure and could make us very different from a lot of the other systems that we're comparing against right now. Any other questions? Yes, Rachel? Just a comment. Thank you. I think the other learning experiences from this, if it should be successful, are how would we backfill a full year's worth of fares, which is closer to $5 million if I remember the ACRA quote that Kurt had given that group, and then also really additional capacity at the parking rideots is there really enough people to access the system and you know to to Tom's comment rifle is not a member of the regional transportation authority and so They do not have their local sales tax contributing in a way that might help keep their fairs down a little more. Any other comments? John? Yeah, I just want to say how enthusiastic I am about this program. I'm excited to see some positive impact and better use of our public transit system. Great. Any other comments? I echo everything just said. I have a lot of enthusiasm for the program. Where's that sand bill? That was bill. Thanks. I couldn't hear that. I think he said he's very enthusiastic. Yeah, and happy to see this. Yeah, and urge everyone to support it. Thanks. Any other comments from board members? Would you accept a motion? Well, I got to take public comments since it's a hearing. Okay, so I will do that first. Anyone I'm going to make public comment on the no fair service. Come on up. You got to come up to Mike. Sorry Sam. Thanks come on up. Oh, hi Sam. I'm from Carpetville. That seems amazing. That's a really good step forward to reducing traffic and You know just continuing to Help everybody out that would be so cool because I use it all the time so thank you. Great. Thank you All right any other public comment Okay Rachel now take a motion I would move that the elected officials transportation committee commit $275,000 up to $275,000 for this fall's fair free service. Pilot program. Can I just amend that just for clarification that amount would be reduced by any other contributions that are after a get from other organizations or communities. And that would be pro rata with Aspen's reduction as well. Thank you. Okay, and we had a second. Okay, so now we need to do a roll call vote. So start with Names village, Alyssa Shank. Yes, Cecilia D'Angelo. Yes. Tom Fittstein. Aye. Susan Mourald. Aye. Picking County, Kelly McNickless Curry. Aye. Rancid Jacoba. Aye. Greg Poshman. Aye. Jeffrey Woodruff. Yes. City of Aspen been Rachel Richards. Yes. Christine Benedetti. Yes. John Doyle. Yes. Bill Gooth. Yes. Sam Rose. Yes. Great. There you go. Great. Passes. And we're on timely schedule. We're on. Great. Thank you so much. Thank you all. We appreciate it. OK. Cookie? To sell. There's cookies. There's more. There's always more cookies. Joining me to close am I closing the public hearing? I guess closing public hearing. Next up, we are going to talk about Highway 82. West Aspen Transportation needs update. This will be a presentation and discussion. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I there a listen on that? No. Come on. You didn't know that. You sure? I'll follow her later. But this is just like, shh. I'm sad. Maybe I had to be coming to your car. No, that's not that. Peter was going to ask me if I could get him. You can go. It's not that. No. It's the same. Right, no, you don't know what's gonna happen. Yes. I'm not sure. What else am I missing? No, it's a... That's exciting. Right. I don't know what's gonna happen. See? Can we make a stop? Wait a minute. I'm just gonna take that. I'm just gonna get through all the steps. I'm still strict. Great. Good afternoon everyone. I'm Jen, I'm a project manager in the city manager's office at the city of Aspen. and Carly McGowan, who's also one of the project managers on this team in the Transportation Department. Lynn Rimbarr are in-term transportation director and then our folks from Jacobs are here to talk about what we've been doing in terms of outreach and direction that we have from the Aspen City Council regarding some pre-NEPA work that we're doing right now before work session that we would have with our City Council in June. And so I'm going to hand it off to the Jacobs team to introduce themselves and to go through the presentation. We will be brief as well given the the time constraints. Thank you very much. We're happy to have you guys here. Thank you. It's good to be here, and thanks for having us. My name is Jim Clark, I'm the project manager for Jacobs Engineering. And I'm Peter Kozy, I'm the traffic lead for Jacobs. So we have a presentation that will span about 20 minutes. I think we have about an hour slotted so that should provide plenty of opportunity for Q&A. Can you hear me okay with the mic? Can you move the mic closer. Okay. Is that better? Thank you. So, the purpose of our presentation is noted in the packet that you received is to seek your input on key transportation needs, review community goals that we've identified as part of this planning process that we've been involved in, to provide highlights on public input received over the last few months and seek your input on potential project limits. So as many or all of you know, City Council and Fall of last year directed staff to investigate initiating a new or supplemental environmental impact study. and the first step in that process would be looking at purpose and need. So as part of that process, we have been taking a fresh look at state how we 82 transportation needs. They're much talked about. You folks live it and know it. But first wanted to touch on what if purpose and need statement is and how it's used in a future potential NEPA process. And as noted here, it is foundational to a project. It establishes why the agency is proposing the project and why the project's needed. It serves as the basis for developing the range of reasonable alternatives that are required to be looked at in an environmental impact statement or an EIS and it serves as the measuring stick by which alternatives are evaluated. So as noted we have been taking a fresh look at at transportation needs and we have been seeking and soliciting public input. We provided it made available online at Questionnaire, and that was made available in early March. And we have received great response. This slide shows and illustrates the distribution of the comments. And as you imagine, most of the comments are from the Aspen areas of codes. But we've received really great response from the down valley communities and even responses from areas and zip codes along the I-70 corridor. And the next few slides just touch on and highlight some of the responses. And I won't go through each of these in turn. You have been handed a handout. If you find this hard to read, there's a handout. But when asked what statement best describes why someone travels to Aspen, most popular response at 37% was commuting to work, followed by 23% accessing residents in Aspen, and then accessing recreational opportunities or facilities. In terms of what mode people use when traveling to and from Aspen, most popular was personal vehicles traveling along so called single occupant vehicle use and that was followed at 19% by carpool or traveling in a personal vehicle with others. And RAPTOBUS came in at 13%. Work-resurfers vehicle all note was 8%. When asked what is most important when they travel to and from Aspen the respondents indicated that travel time reliability was most important. Being able to reasonably assume that you'll arrive at a destination when planned and that was followed by faster travel times, safety, then emergency access evacuation, and faster transit service. And after folks completed the questionnaire, they were prompted to visit this, what we call an interactive map. They could select a, what you might call a digital pushpin, different, they could provide comments based on different themes and place them anywhere on the map and provide a note or comment relative to their concern of the transportation need. Most popular common categories, as you see here, were traffic, safety and bike ped. So the questionnaire and the interactive map are still online and that QR code does provide access. So I'm going to hand it over to Peter to talk about traffic and transit needs. Thanks Jim. So here this slide looks at traffic volumes over the last 25 years on Castle Creek Bridge on Highway 82. That's the main access road in and out of Aspen. Trends in this graph on top indicate Castle Creek Bridge traffic is slightly decreased over the last 25 years, while traffic volumes are not available on Power Plant Road. Its traffic is known to have increased over recent years, and that would explain the recent decrease on Highway 82, you see here. The graph at the bottom compares data by month on Castle Creek Bridge in 1999. That's the dashed line versus an average of 1999 through 2023. That's the solid blue line. So looking at July, the peak traffic month, that traffic has remained steady over the last 25 years. Vehicle type data was collected over Castle Creek in recent months in winter 2025. Pick up trucks and vans account for 28% of all vehicles, many of which are believed to be service vehicles necessary for transporting equipment and do not have the viable option to use transit. Large trucks make up only 2% of all vehicles and buses make up 4%. Jacobs performed an origin destination study to assess vehicle patterns with study limits between Aspen and I-70. The source of this information is a software called Streetlight, which uses big data travel analytics to evaluate travel patterns. All percentages in this slide refer to the inbound peak hour traffic crossing Castle Creek. highway 82 Highway 82 plus power plant road on a typical summer weekday, which totals 1,420 vehicles as shown in the bottom right of this slide. You can follow the pie chart like the hand of a clock going from the furthest origins to the closest origins. The text may be hard to read in this slide, which is why we've provided handouts, and I'm happy to answer any questions on this information. One key finding we want to point out is that more than half of inbound traffic crossing Castle Creek originates beyond brush Creek Road. This slide is similar to the previous slide, but represents the PM outbound. Generally, the percentages of origins and destinations for the PM peak mirror that of the AMP. This slide looks at. It's up on the power plant road. Yeah, I'll get into that. Yeah. This slide looks at unique travel patterns at the Maroon Creek Roundabout, where we focus on pickup drop activity, mostly associated with nearby schools off Maroon Creek and Castle Creek roads. Streetlight data estimates that in February 2024, about 800 drop offs occur in the morning period and nearly 600 pickups in the afternoon. Depending on where vehicles start and end their pickup drop off trip, vehicles put different amounts of strain on the roundabout. For example, the largest share of pickup drop offs start and end their trip in downtown Aspen, which will orchestrate a full loop around the roundabout to complete their pickup or dropoff. Whereas people starting their trip in downtown Aspin, but ending their trip down Valley, will orchestrate one and a half loops around the roundabout, putting more strain on it and limiting the roundabout's capacity to serve peak commuter traffic. Having a single bell schedule also draws more of these pickup drop offs within a single hour. Here in origin destination analysis centered on the cemetery lane area during the AM peak is depicted. Roughly 30% of all inbound traffic approaches Castle Creek from cemetery lane. then half of that traffic uses power plant road to enter Aspen and half uses highway 82 to enter downtown. Most cemetery lane traffic uses the entirety of McLean Flat's road to bypass highway 82 congestion. And McLean Flat's road contains mountainous terrain not designed to accommodate heavy traffic. And you can see on this graph, 15% of all inbound traffic uses power plant road to enter town. And I'll note here that our inbound peak hours are from 6 a.m. to 10, which is pretty wide. There's a lot of what we call peak hour spreading going on. And so in comparison to the PMP, you see nearly double that percentage, or more than double that percentage uses power plant road to bypass congestion, about one-third of all traffic, nearly all of which are doing so to bypass that Q and 9% of that 90% of all outbound traffic uses the entirety of McLean Flats Road to bypass congestion. The bulk of these Q jumpers turned left to immediately join the Q on Highway 82 while others will travel the entirety of McLean Flat's Road. So what's causing all the queuing that motorists are bypassing? This graphic shows the bottlenecks identified from a traffic study performed by Jacobs in summer 2022. I'm not going to go through each bottleneck, but the result of these bottlenecks is severe congestion with peak hour travel times estimated at 30 minutes or more to enter Aspen. Here shows the outbound bottlenecks. They're mostly a mirrored version of inbound bottlenecks, and together, they culminate into gridlock within downtown Aspen with peak hour travel times estimated at 30 minutes or more to exit Aspen. RAPTA circulated a passenger survey a few years ago to help understand their ridership better. The survey found the number one reason for riding RAPTA is to avoid traffic congestion. Avoiding congestion proved to be less important for aspirin to snowmass riders who often just don't have access to a car. The number two reason for riding RAPTA was found to be helping the environment, most important for riders within Aspen. The graph here shows that ridership has nearly returned to pre-COVID levels, and the most recently available data in 2024 shows that its riderships grown 4% compared to 2023. So this slide summarizes our key findings. For transit, it's heavily used to get into an out of Aspen, but not always convenient. There are non-continuous bus lanes that lead to transit delay in mixed traffic. And for general traffic, the bottlenecks contribute to large queues and travel delays. Congestion encourages Q jumpers and seasonal traffic mixes with commuter traffic at Maroon Creek roundabout. Back to Jim. Talk about that. Yeah, thank you. Looking at issues surrounding emergency response and evacuation reviewed, the different emergency evacuation and response plans we looked at hazard assessment plans and interviewed your excellent emergency service providers. And the next few slides just touch on some of the key things. First important to note that most emergency trips have to travel through the constrained and very often congested entrance to Aspen area. So looking at where these trips occur relative to the emergency service providers, some of them are located downtown relative to the hospital and some of the down-balley responders. Most of those trips do have to travel through the escurs across the narrow-to-lane bridge with narrow shoulders and have to travel through the Murn Creek Roundabout. Mergesy service providers noted during peak periods it really slows their response time, that's not a surprise. It's interesting to note they mentioned that during those times the sirens really don't help that much to get to and respond to emergencies. They also noted that the visitors are often confused traveling through the mercury round the bell. We looked at and documented several different types of risks but by far the most concerning is wildfire and really the primary concern for an evacuation standpoint is just the lack of egress routes. I was noted in the emergency service plans and by the emergency service providers. So what that means is that in the case of emergency evacuation orders would be issued as early as possible and they would cover large areas. Some of our all of y'all might be familiar with the what so-called LADRUS or GIS-based modeling that was led by Aspen Police. That found that during looking at a scenario for peak summer day in an evacuation, evacuation could take up to 13 and a half hours to evacuate the entire city. So we also looked at safety data, both C.D. and city data.. data. We looked at 10 years worth of data. And this figure just illustrates the culmination of all that crash data. And as noted here, during that 10 year span, there were 760 crashes really from the AABC area going to the transit center downtown. Thirty-one of which were injury or fatal crashes that were denoted in the green circles on the figure. And what's notable here in the figure illustrates that the number of crashes to increase as you travel into town. In terms of most prominent crash types, rear ends were the most common, and that's the symptom of congestion most often, followed by side-sides, fives, and bike-ped collisions. In terms of crash times, those most of them really occurred during the day. The data didn't indicate that nighttime travel was really an issue. So some of the key findings I noted, but again, those crashes worsen as you get into Aspen. What's notable is when you compare this stretch of 82 to other similar highways, the crash rates are higher and congestion is the primary cause. of crashes at intersections, particularly downtown and near the transit center, every big park. And that's where we do see higher instances with pedestrians. And Peter talked about the McLean Flats Road diversion. Of course, that is causing a lot of diversion, the 82 congestion onto McLean Flats. There are high number of crashes on McLean Flats, and what's notable is, as mentioned before, by Tony, that it's not a road that's really designed to accommodate heavy travel volumes by commuters. We also cataloged an inventory infrastructure along the stretch of 82. We looked at structures, but bridges and co-verts. We looked at pavement. We looked at bike facilities and other things and just to hit on some of the key findings. Some of your infrastructure in terms of the structures and pavement are aging and this is resulting in the need for more maintenance costs. There are several areas, long 82, that have substandard shoulder widths. We found that really having a standardized shoulder width and wider shoulders and areas would really help with emergency response, providing room for emergency response vehicles to travel around congestion or accidents. There are some areas where the bike-ped system, which is excellent in this area, but there's a lack of connectivity in certain areas. As Peter talked about, the Marine Creek Roundabout is a clogged in the system. It's the gerometry is contributing to delays and conflict points. And in terms of the transit, the inefficient transit lanes and facilities are leading to some of the congestion and issues that you find there. Bust Lane discontinuity and some circulation issues there at the Ruby Park Transit Center. So we took to a group of stakeholders a lot of this data that we found. We held a workshop, about a half day workshop in early April, down at ABC at Colorado Mountain College. Here you see the folks that participated. We wanted to get input from the folks, public agencies that work in or involved in transportation issues here in the community. And great, a really good turnout. And we did a lot that day, but I just wanted to highlight a couple results from a few exercises we engage these folks in. One was we went through a prioritization exercise from different transportation needs that we identified. And these are the results. And I'll just touch on the most popular. When asked to prioritize transportation needs, essentially folks were asked to, were given a series of dots and they were allowed to put dots by the needs that they deemed to be most important. And the most popular response or need was improving transit efficiency and travel times. Followed by reducing single occupant vehicle use and improving multimodal options. And the next two most popular relate to what I was talking about. Emergency access and response and reducing the amount of time it takes to evacuate the community. We also engaged the stakeholders in a goals exercise. What we did was we catalogued the results of the public survey that I was talking about earlier. And essentially, the first two columns on the left show the Community goals that we identified from the public survey responses so When asked to to validate Those those community goals essentially the stakeholders Reaffirmed those in the middle and identified a handful of new community goals. So just to touch on a few of the goals, that sort of points of commonality, encouraging future transit options and technologies, and simply reducing the number of vehicles that travel in and out of Aspen and improvements that reflect the small town character of Aspen as well as minimizing environmental impacts. We're all noted as being community goals. Some of the new ones that were identified were and the themes are similar but streamlining transit, travel time and reliability and considering regional or in this case down valley impacts providing equitable solutions and acknowledging the needs the travel needs for worker vehicles. So in addition to the stakeholder workshop we presented to the Transpiration Coalition several weeks ago. We provided a briefing to new City Council members and we've been posing the question about project limits. If the City was C.Net HWA support were to initiate a new study, a new EIS, if you will, what would be reasonable project limits. And the responses that we've heard really have led us to sort of compel us to pull in the go beyond further down belly than just the AADC area and really look at pulling in the brush creek parking right area given it's importance to the transit and to parking and riding and people transferring trip types and mode types. There was some discussion at those meetings about maybe extending those limits down to Smith Creek where the McLean flat road diversion starts. I think we as a group felt that addressing the issues, I mean, that's really a result of the 82 congestion. So if you address the 82 congestion in this area, you know, that really addresses a lot of the diversion needs and use. So I think that, you know, the sort of what we heard and what was reaffirmed is that brush creek at this point seems to be a reasonable terminus or an endpoint for future project. And in terms of the the other limit, everyone felt that the transit facility downtown seemed to be a reasonable term in this. So last few slides, next steps, we have a handful of touch points. We meet again with a Transpiration Coalition meeting. They've asked to attend their meeting on the 22nd of this month. to be on hand to answer questions, we are providing an update to C.N.F.H.W.A. We haven't met with them since November of last year and there has been some turnover with FHWA staff so we'll be bringing them up to speed and we are slated to go back to City Council for a workshop on the 23rd of June and at that we'll be presenting a draft purpose in need statement and requesting City Council for direction on next steps. So this is a slide we presented to City Council last year on City staff felt that for this meeting there might be some questions coming up about different types of NEPA process options. At that time last year we were looking at a handful of different alternative solutions to the preferred alternatives that was identified. Yes, ma'am. Sorry, just a quick question before you dive into this. Who participates in the coordination meeting? It's C.Dopridge and 3 staff. So it's the program engineer that's based out of Glenwood Springs, Roland Wack, if you know Roland. I don't know Roland. I'm sure he's lovely. Yeah, he's been in the community. So his program area serves an additional Glenwood Pitkin and City Basmin. So he's been involved in the interest to ask and discussions for years now. There is the planning and environmental lead for the region. City, CEDOT stivied up into regions and stopped me if you know this, but region three covers as based in Grand Junction, but covers really the area up to Eisenhower tunnel. So Dave C's Arc would participate and have participated in the past meetings. And he serves as their Region 3 planning and environmental lead. And for the FHWA staff, again, it's new staff. The folks with whom we were talking took the fork of the buyout and we'll be meeting with the what's called an FHWA Division World the area engineer that serves region three as well as their new environmental program lead. And you and the city of Aspen staff are me. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. So last year in terms of providing information to city council to help think about next steps to enter in staff and We presented different scenarios and different ways to process those from a national environmental policy extampoint or NEPA standpoint. At that time, we provided a lot of information on NEPA, what it is, why it's needed, why it applies to this corridor. And the short version on that, and I suspect most of y'all know this, is that NEPA was done on this corridor. There's federal funds used at the original, for the original entrance to ASP and EIS. And those funds were used not only for the study and the design work at that time, but also at that time there's a lot of cost for mitigation and a big lance swapped at Merlt. So it is what you might call a federalized corridor, state highway 82 is in the state highway system, so C.DOT has jurisdiction over that. So part of the information we shared was that the city of Aspen has certainly essay and jurisdiction over this area, but so does C.Doughton, so does the Federal Highway Administration. So in terms of the different NEPA process options, in terms of the moving ahead with the solution that was identified in the ETA EIS. That would require from a NEPIS standpoint a need to reevaluate the EIS. at that time we provided information about duration. We estimated that a reevaluation process would take about a year and we also provide a relative order of magnitude costs for these different options. And really the purpose of the reevaluation is to validate the decision that was made back at that time when the EIS, when the record of the decision was made back in the late 1990s. There were different ideas about modifying the preferred alternative, I understand that those are still being looked at. And essentially, if the modifications to the preferred alternative would result in no new significant impacts, we would cover those with a re-evaluation as well. If we do identify new significant impacts and the significant impacts are defined in the regulations that would require supplemental PIS and a new record of decision. And then there were different alternatives or options if we were looking at different solutions for the entrance to Aspen. And they vary based on, frankly, how fully of study those alternatives were during the EIS process, the originally EIS process. If they were, quote unquote, fully evaluated, at that time we felt that could be done with the revised rod. I'm not sure we got C.F.H.W.A. there. I think they're thinking more supplemental EIS. And what's notable here for any alternative and some of the alternatives that received a lot of attention last year and continue to in terms of the split shot. Those were not fully evaluated during that original EIS and those alternatives that were eliminated early would require a new EIS abroad and a brand new alternative similar would require a new EIS run. So that was a lot but that highlights some of the information we shared with council last year. And that's what we had to present. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I made a take questions. For the information. Questions from board members. Come on. Go ahead, Greg. Thank you. I just wanted something that's always concerned me, the evacuation time of 13 and a half hours. And I'm just wondering, does that assume you're evacuating the entire population of the town over Castle Creek Bridge? I'm happy to answer this. The shed of people that was assumed to be evacuating in that model would be everyone within the Aspen Fire District. So some of those people live in Woody Creek and are already down Valley of the bridge. The model that we used assumed two lanes outbound over the bridge, as well as one lane outbound over Power Plant Road and Smuggler Bridge. What about independence pass? No vehicles over independence pass in that model. And also what about people who would just shelter in places? I've heard the fire district suggest that that could be a viable alternative. I want to make sure we're looking at something that's realistic. If everybody tries to leave, we've got a problem, but I'm not convinced that that's an accurate assumption. So I've had to bring it up. Yeah, that number would be assuming everyone is leaving. Yeah, okay. And it also, I'll add it looks at, you know, a peak day similar to the Fourth of July or one of the days near the Fourth of July. It's population-wise. Planning for Easter Sunday or Christmas or something. Yeah, okay. Are you volunteering to stay? Yeah. I don't think I'd get in the drive down belly. Okay, give it a shot. Yeah, can I ask a somewhat rude question, but sort of the elephant in the room, which is, where is this going? How are we going to make it, how, where is going to make a decision? How is that going to happen? This has been discussed for 30 years since a decision was made. I mean, is this going to go on for another 30 years or until the bridge falls down? Seedot just builds the record of the preferred alternative. I mean, who is driving this? Is it Aspen? Is it Seedot? I mean, is it the county? Is it the community who's driving this decision-making? So I'll take that question. We Started this process at the end of 2022 where we we've been asked we meeting the city of Aspen We had at that time our council had asked us to do some information sharing about the preferred alternative and And at the end of that process, we went to council and asked to move, you know, next steps, how to move forward. And the council then wanted to have some additional studies done. So we looked, there's a whole number of studies. I think there's like maybe eight studies that that Jacob's helped us with, including looking at a rehabilitation of. I know all the studies. I know all the studies. The studies are easy. Decision making is hard. Well, I appreciate that. Essentially at the end of that process where we looked at all of that, City Council said, we'd like to direct you to move forward with a NEPA process. So whether that's a supplemental EIS or a new EIS to study different alignments, given that the community, the sentiment at that time was leading toward the preferred alternative is not necessarily what the community is interested in seeing happen. So this pre-NEPA work that we've been doing for the last several months is really in service to that direction that we have from City Council. So if we were to enter into a new EIS there would be a process to just like there was in the 90s to identify with stakeholders and and FHWA a new alignment and then there could be proceeding with building that alignment but there it's a long process that includes also at the end of that would if we were to do that and have a new record of decision, then there would also be a lengthy, you know, design phase where we're working with stakeholders to make sure that we're taking the context into consideration and then also getting on CIDOT's funding list in terms of funding for a new bridge alignment. So, I mean, what I would say is that that is kind of the path that we're on now. I think that Mayor Richards may have some additional information that she'd like to share. So how long a time period if there's a new EIS to point coming to a new record decision? Four or five years? So there's new regulation and I should probably let Jim speak but that has a time clock on any IS process so it's essentially a 24 month process That's part of the reason that we would do this Pre-NEPA work that we've been doing now because it gives us some insight and some Pre-work to be able to meet that timeline And and so that's essentially why we're doing it now. So it's 24 months. Was that culminating in the record's decision then? It would culminate in a new record of decision. And then if decisions made to go ahead, then there's probably a year or two of design work. But again, there was record decision 30 years ago and nobody built a bridge., I mean. Wait, so you want to get Tom. I really appreciate you asking the questions. I think that's what everyone is asking and has for a long time. Part of what you have to realize is that there was a change of city council and city council direction after 2023. I was on the old council when the Biden Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act passed and felt there was a real opportunity to receive that once in a generation funding for this project. We queued it up as Jen is saying to reintroduce the community to what the record of decision did and what were perhaps compromises and tradeoffs we had to make to try to resolve that. There is a standing vote that allowed a light rail system to be built across the marult but not the phased interim approach to the EIS which would have been a busway. The new council decided to take it in a different direction and primarily began by studying a three-lane bridge option to not have to use the moral property. It came forward with a one-lane entrance into town. Jacobs was asked to do a lot of continuing study work which I think was appropriate to reevaluate. I'm on the record for asking for a new EIS but that was after the first letter C dot sent saying if you want to clear a different alignment as in through the Forest Service and Hickory House corners you are going to have to have a new EIS. So close to two years has passed since that direction was changed. They've done some pretty extensive studies. They compared the alternatives of the preferred alternative versus the three-lane bridge and what was most likely to solve some of the congestion problems. I do have to say that there is no infrastructure that is going to solve all of our congestion problems. That is a matter of management systems. That is a matter of transportation demand management models, which in Aspen we now have $6 an hour parking. We have downtowner riding people around without cars. We've tried to improve with bike share and first and last mile, but there are change circumstances. So to get back to your kind of original question, the council will be deciding on a direction of should we reevaluate the preferred alternative, which I disagree with Tony's conclusions on that in many ways. I think it would be work and data work that we could then roll into an EIS if it's found that the preferred alternative does not work. But on the same token, we would be staying within the original record of decision to potentially go into a supplemental. And I see that as a shorter and more direct path. As I understand it, and these guys are polite to say that the changes have been happening that the federal highway administration. We don't know if it's gutted just like all of the other alternatives agencies we deal with but the purpose and need statement needs to be validated by our council in a lot of ways would it be significantly different If we did it today? I think it would still be about emergency access, but we're about fire evacuation than just ambulance and sheriff service. The airport was always there. It's not a new condition. The marult was always a 4F property as was the burger cabin. They were always treated specially under a federal highway administration for 4F properties. The desire for community character is the same. The desire for controlling traffic growth is the same. So other than a change of service vehicles and commuting workforce, there's not that much. So we could put in a request with a new purpose and need statement, and they could sit on it for six months before they turn back and say, well, why don't you reevaluate the old preferred alternative? We don't know what they would say when we submit. Or maybe they would say, yes, you can go forward and please start funding it. That is part of why we were kind of ready to pull the trigger two years ago and pursue some of that Biden infrastructure money, but this council changed direction. And it took three separate letters from the Department of Transportation, C.Dot, telling the city that if you want to clear a new quarter, you need a new EIS. But that may not be the most expedient path for all of us now. It seems like a natural sequence that if the preferred alternative is found to be inadequate or could be refined further or added to that we could then stay within that original controlling document and get to a supplemental. There is a major difference I think it's really worth noting for this whole audience that if we go to a new EIS, and as they say ever so politely, Aspen will get to weigh in, but Aspen is not the decision maker, that the body of commuters, the people who use Highway 82, will be the group they want to serve. So that's everyone who commutes from basalt, from carbon-dale, from glenwood, from rifle, and how do we serve those people will be what is served the best. So we, that's a 52-card pickup. We do not know with, especially, the New Federal Administration, who does not care about greenhouse gases, does does not believe in climate change and wants to see the fossil fuel industry thrive. So I think that for us as Asman to maintain more local control and move forward more quickly. re-evaluation of the preferred alternative deserves real evaluation by all of us as well as saying let's embark on a new EIS. And should we embark on a new EIS? And this is my last comment. I'll shorten it up. I think it would be more appropriate for the county to participate in funding half of it because it would be trying to deal with McLean flats roads in the future and out to the airport more. It would be all the residents who were up in mountain valley and red mountain who need fire evacuation. It wouldn't just be the little terminus of Aspen anymore. It would be everyone wanting to contribute and be a part of that, but we do not know what that outcome would be. I worry they'd come up with a six lane, or they'd come up with a four lane that there's no dedicated mass transit lanes. We don't know what they would come up with, everything could be on the table, including aerial tramways and connections of the mountains and all sorts of wonderful ideas. So if there's just clarification, there's a new EIS, then the state and the feds make the decision. They make the final decision. If we stay with the existing EIS, with a supplemental or wherever, then the control stays local. They will still make the final decision. I don't want to be in clear with that, but they would need to be working within the original rod or supplemental to that rod, not a totally new set of priorities and goals. Well, thank you. That really clarifies a very important question. Thank you, Michelle. Thank you, Jez. Yeah, hold on a second. Kelly was first. Go ahead, Kelly. Yeah, I wondered if you could, if you might go back to the slide with the yellow arrow. That's an easy way to look at it. I guess following up a little bit on the conversation, we just had. It would be helpful to understand maybe some additional arrows. Does the process move similarly from left to right relative to public input? So are we looking at like a narrower band of public input for re-evaluation than a new EIS? Yeah, generally I think that's a fair statement. Just to clarify, you know, with a re-evaluation, technically public input's not required. I think the and F-H-D-A, I don't want to speak for them, but I feel confident in saying that they would feel like it's for this community given the concern about interest assessment issues. They would feel that it's warranted and would recommend it and support it. And I feel like City staff would feel the same way. As you go through, you know, taking it to the far right, new EIS will be doing extensive public outreach. And that will be both in, you know, the entrance task and area as well as downbelly. Okay. And then is that similar for, I guess, like, the sphere of decision-making, you know, does it? Does it broaden? Let me see if I can phrase this more. Like, does more people get involved in the decision or do fewer people get involved in the decision or does that remain kind of static from left to right? And that, separate from public, like the role of stakeholder input just the actual kind of decision making bodies. Does that change at all? Yeah I think this is a slide that we also presented to City Council last year and what we were trying to do is just give a sense either for re-evaluation or a new EIS, what that team structure might look like. And this follows a process that we used on the Grand Avenue Bridge Project. It follows a process that CIDOT is accustomed to using. And the reason I pointed out is that if you look at the management team, that would be comprised of C.DOT FHWA. It's really the communities and the jurisdictions that have or local governments that have jurisdiction. So we would expect, and C.DOT and FHWA did look at this and feel like it was a reasonable structure. So the upshot is the city and the county would be at the table, right? And then some of the other teams would be comprised of some of the down valley communities. So that's your Carmeldale's, snowmess village, you're not really down valley but, and then And there be different task forces and groups for different issue types, different points of concern. So I think the point is that the folks really that have jurisdiction there within the project limits would be more involved than others if that addresses your question. Well, sort of, I guess I'm like, you know, who has to sign off on the final design? And does that change from, you know, the re-evaluation process to a brand new area? Ultimately, it's a C-DOT. It's an FHWA decision regardless of whether it's a re-evaluation or any other different type of, they serve as the federal lead agency. And C-DOT serves as the co-lead. So they have ultimately, ultimate decision authority. I've done this for a long time and I know that they would weigh heavily and put from this group and from others, but ultimately that's who would make the call. Okay, and then I just have one more question on that slide again if you could clarify for me. I'm a little confused about when we look at the revised ROD with re-evaluation. The others all make sense to me this one. I'm a little muddied. I don't know if it's like a combination of processes or like restating something already up there. Well it's complicated even for me. I've mentioned when I presented this, I'm not, this is a data slide. We did throw it in there, anticipating questions. I mentioned when I first presented this, I don't know that we ever got C.NetfishWA to agree to revised rod. For an alternative that was fully evaluated in the EIS and I will will note that the alternatives that were fully evaluated, meaning they went through the whole spectrum of impact analysis, the noise analysis, wetland delineation, everything else. The other alternatives, the 40 alternatives that were looked at were screened out early, they didn't get that full analysis. Those that did were focused really on that GAL, and all of them, but all before that modified direct alignment that goes across the open space. They're just different configurations on it. What this essentially means is if the city community, who ever wants to advance an alternative other than the PA that was fully evaluated. We thought that perhaps it could be done under revised right I think maybe what we're hearing as a supplemental might be more appropriate. Okay thank you if I may I'm passing around something that was a part of a document that Jacobs put together that's From 2024 also that this was you know, obviously it's a point in time of what the kind of alternatives that were being discussed With the timeline and the process so again We would love to be able to update this if there were other conversations related to, you know, modifications of the preferred alternative. But I thought it was relevant to bring if this came up. But I noted it's just an excerpt from a larger document that we put together, that Jacob's put together in 2024 related to the different NEPA processes and how that might look in various scenarios. So hopefully that's helpful. Great. Thank you so much. Frances, have a question. Thank you. Yes. I have a couple of questions. So when you were talking about that group that would be Picking County and C.D. and C.D. and it would also draw in other stakeholders. Were you talking about a new EIS or about the re-evaluation? We felt re-there either. Either? Great. And then I'm wondering about the vote in March. So I'm kind of confused about why they're... What's the impact of that vote? And actually what was the question on the vote was it just about using open space but could we have some clarity about that? I might be able to be best on that. The city attorney had determined that there had been a public vote to allow light rail to use the designated corridor across the maralt but there had not been a public vote to allow a busway across that same designated corridor on the maralt. The original 98PA was written to have an interim phase that you could phase all the way up to light rail from dedicated busways. If that were the case, I think those dedicated busways would be eliminated when the rail came through. But it's, rail is not financially feasible. It doesn't seem realistic at this point in time. The vote would allow C.DOT to begin the planning, which planning encompasses everything. Planning is re-evaluating the PA as a terminology. And then it also said that if that is not what goes forward, the same moral property could be used if it came out of a EIS that was through a NEPA process. So it wasn't a request to be able to do the rod without rail. I mean was it the people people voting? Yes, we want the record of decision. We want the preferred alternative. It included both options that it could be. The preferred alternative alignment was preserved. Essentially, the alignment that was identified that's very narrow and the record of decision could move forward. Or any new entrance to Aspen that came through an EIS NEPA process that used the Merolt. It allowed both options. It was not for closing it. It did not make it a Record of Decision preferred alternative only vote. Why not? Wouldn't we be further down the road now? Had you asked them? Is this what you want? I think people saw it as a proxy vote. Well, Anne, what if the re-evaluation ends up in a new EIS? I mean, because the re-evaluation could have said no, it won't work. and then you, because we knew it was going to need a re-evaluation because it said it wouldn't work and then you need a second vote to approve the use of the meralt for a new EIS. Right, I understand but I thought that what it was at the time and I had a sense that other people thought this as well, that they were voting that yes we want to go ahead with the record of decision even without rail and yes you can use the maraud open space that's what I think that is essentially what people voted for but again if the reevaluation shows that you need something very different I know I understand then then you could also use the maraud it covered both bases okay I may, in my understanding, it had to do with city requirements regarding public votes for use of public lands, city lands. And so it wasn't really a vote on the neapoprocess technically. It was a vote to allow plus use over that public open space. And it passed. C..NET and FHWA have stated that they never felt that public vote was required to move ahead with the deferred alternative. City Attorney has registered to disagree with that. This the ballot initiative clarified that. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Any questions from board members? I think just to kind of finish answering Combs question, it's our understanding and please elaborate that once we have a direction and see that in FHWA say we have a direction, we need to do about 30% design work to be able to get into the state funding loops for this. So these decisions and design work are separate. The city had originally set aside close to 10 million. We've spent a considerable amount of 1.6 or something with the engineering group, but we do have reserved money to begin doing that design work so that we could then get into the state regional transportation planning processes as well. Thank you. Other, John, do you have a question? Everyone may comment. One comment and I guess two questions. Sorry to take the focus off the entrance, but this is also about highway 82. I wanted to comment on one point that was made of reducing single occupancy vehicles by improving multimodal options. We've talked about the two bike bridges from the Brush Creek Park and Ride and to connect to the ABC for months now and I would say that is part of a solution to that very statement. The Ruby Park, the question I have is about Ruby Park Transit Center circulation issues. What are those and what can be done about them and the other question is about the options for the bottleneck that is our roundabout. Is there anything that we can do to alleviate that? I mean, it seemed to be a huge improvement over what we had before but How do we go forward? To answer your question about the circulation concerns at Ruby Park Transit Center. There is an issue on Durant Street. Durant is on the south end of Ruby Park Transit Center. Buses are parked heading eastbound and westbound in both directions. The buses that are parked in the eastbound direction have to navigate through a lengthy detour, east up original street, just ahead back west, whereas if they they weren't facing that eastbound direction if they were facing westbound They could just go directly out of town wouldn't have to deal with that inefficiency And you're If that addresses your question you had a question about the you know solutions to the roundabout. We, in NEPA or pre-NEPA processes, we try very hard, although it's human nature to want to think about solutions, but we really try to hone in on the transportation needs and defining those and articulating those firsts and getting consensus and agreement on those before we really turn our eyes to potential solutions. But we're, of course, thought about it. I don't know if you want to chime in on any thoughts you've had. I think it's fun. Yeah. Well, there's design solutions and then there's travel demand management solutions. Microphone will close for a minute. Yeah, there's different, there's design solutions and there's travel demand management solutions. Microphone will close for a minute. Yeah, there's design solutions and there's travel demand management solutions such as the single bell schedule, adjusting that, assigning different locations for pickups and drop-offs. And then you could look at redesigning the roundabout. There's options to possibly merge castle creek with maroon creek before it hits the roundabout and then just forming a T intersection instead of a roundabout or just taking out the castle creek leg of the roundabout by merging. I think that's how it used to be. Castle Creek in a little while. And I know that before what a year or two ago there was a staggered bill schedule and you know as a parent I get why. There was a desire to have that on a single bill schedule but from a good gestion standpoint it it's not the best solution. And as noted, you know, the preferred alternative in the broad had a whole travel management program. And a lot of those measures have been implemented, I think, with any new process, you know, that would warrant a fresh love. So just trying to reduce the number of vehicles, thinking about mode shift that traveled through the roundabout. Thank you. I'd comment. Really appreciate the response on the circulation issues because that's something I think we all recognize but really couldn't wrap our heads around it until you put it in layman's terms. Yeah, thanks. I was recently up in Bend, Oregon and they have have fully embraced the round about, but what they've discovered is they have a lot of tourists, and tourists don't know how to use the roundabout, and we see that here as well. Kelly, just a quick question. What happens to the other elements of the current record of decision in this process? I mean, we've done a lot of them, but there are some of them that we still haven't done or we bring up for discussion. What is, how did those get implicated in this? Well, they would, they again would warn a fresh look. Just give an example. We've had some requests for shuttles to use the bus lane, things like that. Like where do ideas like that come into play here? Yeah, I think either, I feel free to jump in, but either with a new EIS or even with a reevaluation, I think it's worth, as we look to optimize, let's just take hypothetically with the reevaluation lookingation looking at the preferred alternative. I think it's reasonable to look at ways that you could solutions to optimize it. And that could look at maybe looking at the use of the bus lane and whether that could be opened up to HIV use or shuttle use. I know it's been talked about a lot. Technically that's not something that the rad allows but could be studied as part of our re-evaluation. Okay. And I would just say- So the minor point wouldn't force a new EIS if it gets thrown into the mix. Not in my opinion, though. Okay. Thank you was just going to say, obviously, that's something that there would want to be a look at it wrapped in the back, making sure that there would be a conversation about something like that. Thank you, Jim. I do see the re-evaluation as an opportunity to say the transportation demand management measures that we've put in place are not enough and look at what could be more. And I think that's what the 21st century transportation coalition is looking at. And I think you can certainly merge those. They begin their meetings by saying they're on parallel tracks with us. And whether it's congestion pricing, whether it's greater transit, whether it's times of day when those can be mixed traffic with the cabs or hotel shuttles. I don't know. I don't know if the FAA would turn it down, but it would be something we could ask for in the re-evaluation. What new TDMs can we implement, and how can we modify what we have? We do have most of the elements built other than the marult section of the original entrance. I think that part of optimizing it to John's question is, we have a traffic light that backs up traffic coming 100 yards off of that cemetery lane. And we have people who now use cemetery lane to take their kids to school via McLean flats. And when you enter the roundabout, you start having priority and it stops all the state highway to traffic. You know, so there's our own travel patterns are a big part of that between our golden triangle, the airport, Aspen and Snumas. Other comments from board members? Look at that. We are one minute until the scheduled end time of this conversation. I don't think we're going to take any public comment on this story. We're not taking any public comment on this. We have discussed in your agenda states that the public comment is for items that are not on the agenda. And so very quickly, I can use the public comment. Okay, come on up. I'm giving you three minutes or less. Okay. So again, this is one of the best conversations I've seen forever. And I was sat on the very first transportation committee 50 years ago, 45 years ago, for the entrance to Aspen. So the very first thing is I'm firing evacuation. 13.5 hours coming in of Aspen, but that's not taking into consideration snowmast village emptying out in order to take into account starwood. I live in snowmast canyon. I see the traffic every day. Those hours would probably increase once we've a fire all the way around. The second thing Smith Hill Road, Brian Pettit might be able to speak to this more, but as you know, that's gonna be closed off probably by this fall. So those 3,500 cars that are going every day on McLean Plats Road, are they going to choose to take that Michigan left hand turn, go back down the highway, down Smith Hill Road, are they going to be coming into the mix at the entrance to Aspen? The third thing is the reevaluation according to Colorado Federal regulations, 23 CFR 771.129 public comment is not required and it's generally not taken it can be asked but they usually don't grant it because that's not the purpose of a revaluation that's a different discussion. I can see those confusion we're getting on better plain I ask the council for a public work session I invited sessions. I invited C.Dot yesterday if they could come and clear up some of these issues, these questions that are still outstanding on what the difference is between a re-evaluation in EIS. That's where Rachel and I disagree and that is a different conversation, but I just wanna make that point. The next thing is I have implored, begged, pleaded. Yesterday I got a little testy with Pagan County commissioners, because you're supposed to be staying in a process. One thing that was not brought forward today in this relationship to Tom's question, where are we in the process? Right now we're in the process. The City of Aspen is the lead agency. They're the only agency that's conducting this survey. They have hired Jacobs engineering to conduct what's known as a letter of intent. That letter of intent is formed from the purpose and need statement and the objectives and they have gone painstakingly done a survey. I've asked everyone to take the survey, become part of the public process, the interactive map so that Jacobs can perform a letter of intent that's addressed to CeeDOT and the federal highway, with the reasons as to why we need either revaluation or full EIS. What disturbed me yesterday, and I don't, I'm not going to bring up any names right now, but we have different groups that are working outside the scope of the process. It could derail our efforts for C dot. C dot in the record of decision, the fellow highway they said, Aspen can never make up their mind. They need to make up their mind. There's too many people that are going back and forth. That's why I have this process. So yesterday, two members of the Pagan County Commissioners and one City Council member before the decision has been made as to what Jacob study before you get that information. So you can make a good decision on. And before the council has got their June 23rd work session to hear the results of the study that's gonna happen. They asked to have a resolution approved endorsing the reevaluation. I read a letter from Chuck Marson, I have it over there, but basically he says, ask him to top dog, how come they cannot understand that? Everything's got to go through the city of Aspenoi right now through Jacob's engineering to the letter of intent. This asking for approval of an endorsement is outside the scope of the process. CIDOT and federal highway, in their record of decision, Jeffrey, you've read the whole thing. It states that's the biggest question we have. How are we gonna pull everybody together so they can make a decision? So that's my take of us, everyone, to please stick within the process, do the survey, the study, the interactive map. Let Jacobs do the letter of intent, Rachel, with your counsel, you're going to hear the results of that. Then you're going to make the decision, do we want to do an EIS or revaluation, but we don't want to muck it up before that. That's all I have to say. I appreciate it, Tony. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you all. Are we good to wrap up this? Oh, question. How long is the survey open, tell? We haven't decided when we would close it. We don't really see any need to close it. We're still getting some response. The response is a point in a lot. We got a lot right at the beginning. But we... haven't decided when we would close it, we don't really see a need to close it. We're still getting some response, the response is going to lot. We've got a lot right at the beginning, but we haven't decided too close. Okay, great. We, part of the reason we wanted to leave it open is because we have been working very hard to hear from our Spanish speaking community and we haven't heard, I don't know, actually if we've had any of both the survey and the map are available in Spanish and so we wanted to try some more outreach methods to make sure that we're reaching folks who speak Spanish. Thanks, Jim. Okay. Are we good? I have a clarifying question on that. So from everything, I think we've heard from Jen and Rachel. Okay, I we good? I'll have a fair fine question on that. So, from everything, I think we've heard from Jen and Rachel. I can't hear you at all. What's that? I can't hear you at all. Oh, sorry. I'm not sure if these are like cars or, you know. Yeah, okay. The efforts underway at the city are for a pre-NEPA process for new EIS. That is the question that has been given by the prior council. Okay. We've not checked in on it since. Exactly. So a new EIS again is at the right side of that column of options to which a re-evaluation is at the left side of that column of options to which pre-NEPA efforts would not be required. So I just want to clarify that in response to Ms. Cronberg's criticism of the conversation at the Commissioner table yesterday because our endorsement was for discussion around the re-evaluation, which would exclude the pre-NEPA work that we're being asked to wait for. So that's my clarity. Thank you. Thank you. I think that the work that they've done for the pre-NEPA work that we're being asked to wait for. So that's my clarity, thank you. Thank you. I would just say I think that the work that they've done for the pre-NEPA is very helpful and can roll into the reevaluation. It's the initial data that has been gathered. I would speak for myself, but I think that City should ask for additional data beyond the minimum that this federal highway admission others would do to make sure we can have a successful system going forward. And I do think and I would commit that public comments can be taken through our board and your board and other boards. It may not be something that the process formally requires but is something we would want do. And Pick and County has had a role in this in the past as a cooperating agency from the original record of decision. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate it and for all the good information. We are now going to move on to our next topic, which will actually be our last topic, because the coalition is not going to be joining us today. So permanent automatic vehicle counters report, Linda. Right. Nice. That's what it is. So in your packet, there is a report on our counter system that we just got deployed. I had a presentation, but I don't need to do it, but I can take any questions. It's too long. It's going to go over. So I'll just take any questions. They off, not they were staying till 615. You have slides that you can forward us then? Yeah, sure. I think we might have any questions on the permanent automatic vehicle counters report. I do have a question about whether any of this data would be included in what all you're gathering in this? I certainly would imagine so. Yes, so our counter system is pretty brand new technology. It has taken us a while to get it all dialed in and audited. So we now have all the cameras online. They are showing us some different data than some of the data that was presented earlier. But ours only uses, it's an AI system that takes video of vehicles going by and translate that video into metrics via AI. It doesn't use street light or cell phone data or anything like that. So this would supplement the data that's being collected by the other projects. Yeah. Great. That's good. Other questions, anyone on the vehicle counters? Kelly. I'm just wondering what other types of technologies can this infer that can these counters integrate with? You know, like if we did look at some sort of congestion pricing or something like that, is this technology that would facilitate that opportunity or consideration? Well, what's really interesting about this data is that it takes 15 minute increments both directions 24 hours a day. And the dashboard for it is very lively. You can scan across a whole day and see the numbers of cars going in and out every 15 minutes. What it is showing us is it answers, it both asks new questions and answers them. For instance, the data going in and out on March 20th, which was during ski season, the number of cars going in to Aspen is roughly the same as the number coming out between three and six. That was surprising to us, but this data with this technology was able to capture that. So I think it's going to really inform a lot of TDM programs because it can look at the different types of travel, passenger cars versus the trade parade, which as we know doesn't necessarily have a transit solution. It might have a a vanpool solution or some other solutions. But the detail this is going to give us I think it's going to really be, is really going to help inform TDM programs and strategies. Okay, but in itself, it doesn't, like, there's not other functions that could have that we're not utilizing. This company is bringing on sort of new traffic data functions all the time. Right now, we have four functions, which is a number of vehicles, types of vehicles, speeds and emissions. We are talking to them about bringing on a second, a fifth piece, which would show us how traffic responds to crashes, weather, road closures of the different kinds, but as for a specific application to something like express lane pricing? Yeah, no. Sure, because it takes a picture of individual lanes. The camera that we have near the airport is shooting five lanes, both directions. So congestion management, it can pretty much do any of that. Once we dive into the details of what we're seeing. Thank you, I appreciate that. I have one more follow up on that. So does the company that we're using for these counters do the evaluating of the data? Or do we need someone to do that? We can do that. And any of you that wants to can, we can give you passwords, you can go in and play around with it. It's pretty fun actually. The dashboard is very lively. And we, as transportation, we have our county engineer on the team Carly is on our team I'm on it as a planner. We can certainly ask them for additional help but we can sort of look at look at the trends that we're seeing from from the data. Okay and as we continue to work with it, and they bring more capabilities online, it's a newer company with new technology, so they're looking to expand into different areas of information that we might need. That was kind of blah, blah, blah. That's kind of what I was is who who was looking at the data and coming to conclusions. Any other questions on the vehicle counters Greg you don't have a question. I guess you got tired. Okay no other questions on that. All right before we adjour, I'll say the next meeting is August 14th. So everyone should have an encounter at the city of Aspen. You guys will be hosting. I would take a motion to adjourn. In a second, thank you, Susan. And then I need to do a roll call vote. No, I'm good. Okay, Clint says no. No roll call vote. All in favor? All in favor. Hi. Thank you all for coming. Thank you. Yeah. She did it so really. You're on a good meeting. Thanks. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. 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I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. Thank you. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you