Kronberg: In a New York minute
For the Entrance to Aspen Highway 82 Project … which National Environmental Process is needed for the best results for the top two concerns:
- Fire evacuation
- Gridlock/congestion
Is it a new reevaluation process of the 27-year-old Record of Decision or a new environmental impact study (EIS) that focuses on today’s realities of traffic?
On July 7, Aspen City Council during a 4 p.m. work session is going to hear from Jacobs Engineering about the two different processes. Which way do we go?
Fire Evacuation
Remember July 4, 2018, when the Lake Christine Fire burned 12,588 acres on Basalt Mountain, forcing thousands of people to evacuate in a New York minute with only the clothes on their back, their children, and pets?
Same catastrophe would have happened a few days ago in the Snowmass Creek Valley when a van exploded, causing a rapidly spreading wildfire, if our Roaring Fork Valley’s fire crews, helicopter, and fixed-wing aircraft had not responded in another New York minute.
Can you imagine if a wildfire was spreading downwind from Independence Pass towards Aspen?
For me, when a fire is ready to engulf where I am, I want as many escape routes out of the fires of hell as possible.
In Aspen, we need two Castle Creek Bridges connecting to Highway 82 and the roundabout for the quickest, safest, and our best chances of getting out alive in a New York minute.
To me, it is an easy choice. Here’s why:
- A new environmental impact process (EIS) would give us two Castle Creek Bridges to the roundabout.
- A reevaluation of the 1998 ROD only gives us one Castle Creek Bridge to the roundabout because only was bridge was approved back then. A reevaluation only reevaluates what was approved in the 1998 ROD. Anything new like a second bridge to the roundabout needs a new environmental process.
Gridlock/congestion
We all sit in gridlock traffic from Brush Creek Park & Ride to downtown Aspen.
A new environmental impact process (EIS) would allow us to deal with the traffic from Brush Creek Park & Ride to the airport, ABC, future Lumberyard housing, Buttermilk, roundabout, to downtown Aspen.
A new reevaluation process would only allow us to deal with traffic from Buttermilk to downtown Aspen. Why? That stretch of Highway is what is in the 1998 Entrance to Aspen ROD. The Basalt Record of Decision covered from Buttermilk to the airport/ABC/Lumberyard Housing to Brush Creek Park & Ride.
In a New York minute … it’s clear we need a new environmental impact process so we can have two Castle Creek Bridges connecting to the roundabout as well as traffic solutions from downtown Aspen to Brush Creek Park & Ride.
Not sure yet if Mayor Richards is going to take public comment during the July 7 worksession. Letters to the Editor are important, as well as directly emailing the Aspen City Council.
