Guy: The other side of the story

A “Yes” vote on Issue 1 does not need to halt the Midland Avenue Streetscape project. Changes can be made quickly that can reduce the cost and time to complete the project without stopping construction.

According to the Town’s Finance Department, the project is $4,187,836 over budget as of Dec. 30, 2023. The town and the mayors insist they are under budget because they refuse to include the Phase I costs from last year. Those costs included the entire water line replacement, 25 new parking spaces in the Midland Spur, repairs to the sanitary sewer, and the new storm drainage system. As a result, all the Midland Spur asphalt had to be replaced. The town is claiming that the completed Phase 1 is NOT in fact part of this project, so that they can exclude the cost from their total project budget!

Our ordinance does not stop the project but ONLY preserves existing on-street parking and limits construction costs to the $11,500,000 approved by the voters in 2021. At that time, the plan indicated the current mix of parallel, diagonal, and head-in parking would remain.

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The new storm drainage construction will continue. The major improvements in underground utilities, which are now in place will remain.

Contrary to the mayors’ statement, the Midland Avenue design was not approved by the voters. The town’s design removes half of the parking and includes numerous expensive frills such as rain gardens, colored concrete, brick sidewalks, overpriced streetlights, and extensive barriers to snow removal. According to Dave Detweiler, the town’s owner’s representative, the design was aspirational, and they expected it to be over budget.

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Nothing in the ordinance will reduce handicapped access. Creating a Woonerf-style, curbless pedestrian mall on the major thoroughfare to the Fryingpan recreation is unnecessary. We do not need continuous handicapped curbs. Do we really want wheelchairs crossing the street from between parked cars?

The public outreach performed by a hired consultant and the design team was not done to gauge sentiment but to sell what had already been decided upon. Negative feedback was ignored, and there was no dialogue with the community. Not one member of the council owns, manages, or works at a business on Midland Avenue, yet they know best what improves the vitality of those businesses?

Let’s be honest: The facts and figures used by the Town of Basalt and the mayors are slightly suspect at best.

The claim that a “Yes” vote means a year of redesign and rebidding and endless cost increases is suspect, as well. Based on my 50 years of experience as an architect and engineer in the Roaring Fork Valley, the changes needed to finish the project can be identified and conveyed to the contractor in less than a day in a change order. The town’s position that one year and rebidding is needed is just a scare tactic.

The major items in the change order would be as follows:

— Replace the 80 steel post bollards with a conventional curb and gutter. This restores all of the 22 parking spaces lost with the town’s current design. Downtown needs more parking, not less. The new parking spaces in the Midland Spur are two football fields away from Alpine Bank.

— Remove all of the center street structures, including planters and rain gardens, and maintain the loading zones. Remove all other raised planters to make winter snow removal efficient and cost-effective. Old Pond Park provides all of the storm water treatment needed to avoid polluting the Roaring Fork River.

— Change all sidewalks from brick pavers over a concrete substructure to a normal concrete sidewalk. We need the improved sidewalks, but they do not need to cost an arm and a leg.

— Maintain the existing streetlights rather than using the new, overpriced lights that are angering the residents on the Midland Spur because they are too tall and too bright. Add additional lights matching the existing ones to remove dark areas. We do not want an Aspen-style pedestrian mall on the main thoroughfare up the Fryingpan River to Ruedi.

Let’s finish this project with the budget that was publicized while preserving parking. Please vote “Yes” to keep old Town Basalt’s character, charm, and vitality.

Ted Guy, and those who love Basalt (over 400 petition signatures submitted)