Castle Creek Bridge set for fall inspection in the midst of evacuation concerns

Fresh off the heels of the “Aspen Aware & Pitkin Prepared” Emergency Readiness event last week at City Hall, conversations continue around the ongoing issue of a deteriorating bridge serving as the city’s only evacuation route in case of an emergency.

The Castle Creek Bridge, which was built in 1961, has an estimated lifespan of 75 years and is set to expire in 2036. According to Traffic Data Explorer, as of 2022, the Annual Average Daily Traffic is 27,000 vehicle trips a day at a location on CO 82 just west of the Castle Creek Bridge, noting that if a car commutes for instance from Basalt to Aspen and back, the vehicle would register as two trips for the overall AADT number.

Also in 2022, Colorado Department of Transportation gave the Castle Creek Bridge a rating of 50.3 out of 100, which was considered “fair” by CDOT’s estimations. If a bridge falls below a fair rating, which is considered below 50, CDOT could put weight limits on vehicles crossing the bridge, as well as evaluate the bridge for repair or replacement.

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“I’m absolutely concerned about evacuation,” said City Manager Sara Ott. “These conversations around community character are absolutely what the community should be having and discussing; but at the end of the day, in my responsibilities as a city manager, I’m worried with this increase in elevated risk in wildfire happening here on the Western Slope that we do not have a way to safely move people out of this community during our busiest seasons — particularly two peak weeks of the year during Independence Day and during the week between Christmas and New Years.”

According to CDOT’s Region 3 Communications Manager Elise Thatcher, the next CDOT bridge inspection will be in 2024, with the city planning its own independent inspection this fall. But as Ott explained, the 1998 Record of Decision, which was approved by Pitkin County, has a preferred alignment — a new bridge on a new alignment — after evaluating “several dozen” other alternatives.

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Last February, Fire Chief Rick Balentine, Interim Fire Chief Bill Linn, Pitkin County Sheriff Michael Buglione, and Chief of Emergency Services Gabe Muething each came together to sign a letter to City Council expressing concerns of the town having inadequate evacuation routes, further expressing their support of expanding the emergency egress capacity of Colo. 82 through the New Castle Creek Bridge project.

While the letter states that the New Castle Creek Bridge project is “not a perfect solution” and the community will ultimately need to decide the path forward with a vote, the letter also acknowledges that alternative evacuation paths — the Marolt Pedestrian Bridge and the Rio Grande Trail — are not safe or reliable, as well as being located within high-risk areas for fires. 

Additionally, the letter states that the remaining outbound lanes — Castle Creek Bridge and Power Plant Road — also fail as adequate routes during a fast-moving wildfire.

The letter concludes with explaining how the current bridge configuration as routed through the “S curves” can only handle around 700 to 1,000 vehicles an hour, but during peak wildfire season, approximately 30,000 to 35,000 vehicles may need to exit quickly.

“If the new bridge were implemented this would greatly increase our evacuation capacity,” the letter states. “Though the proposed carrying capacity has not yet been fully calculated for the new design, we see this as an opportunity to increase the effectiveness of an evacuation. In addition to improving emergency egress out of town, it also could mean faster response times for emergency medical calls into town, as well as a more rapid route to Aspen Valley Hospital from downtown.”

According to the city’s website, Aspen is currently working closely with the Federal Highway Administration and CDOT to determine the next steps of the project. In order to move forward, Aspen voters will need to approve using the right-of-way over Marolt-Thomas Open Space for exclusive bus lanes instead of a light rail. Additionally, CDOT requires City Council to validate support for the project by passing a resolution stating high-level backing.

“The community needs to reconcile where they want another bridge, and it’s a really important community value conflict of safety, including evacuation, with maintaining a sense of control about the growth and the amount of population that is coming in and out of the community each day,” Ott said. “The community should expect repairs to the bridge to be happening much more frequently and much more disruptive if we try to continue to repair it. It will be up to CDOT about repair versus replacement.”

To reach Jonson Kuhn, email him at jkuhn@aspentimes.com.