Aspen going in circles on traffic studies

Here we go again. Another traffic study. It’s reported that our City Council wants to spend $100,000 on a traffic study of the roundabout (“CDOT gives Aspen roundabout ‘D’ grade; city council considers $100k for traffic study,” Nov. 12, aspentimes.com). How many traffic studies do we need and how much money has to be wasted to determine what everyone knows?

The roundabout is a mess. It’s graded “D” by the Colorad Department of Transportation. You simply can’t have the entrance to city with a 10 mph speed limit roundabout simultaneously servicing a busy state highway and two other busy roads. We need an overpass/underpass providing unimpeded traffic for Highway 82, and then a new method for accommodating traffic to and from Castle Creek and Maroon Creek roads.

Yes, it will be expensive, but any other solution will simply not work.

Eric Simon

Snowmass Village