Basaltines further weigh in on traffic, bike, pedestrian improvement plans for Willits Lane

Conceptual plans to improve pedestrian passage between downtown Basalt and Willits were met with varying public responses during a Wednesday open house. 

Hosted by the town of Basalt at the Element Hotel, community members had the chance to take a look at the town’s newest plans for the Willits Lane Connectivity and Wayfinding Project.

According to a release from Basalt, “The goal of the Willits Lane Connectivity Project is to promote multi-modal transportation by improving pedestrian and cyclist connections between the Willits Lane area and historic Basalt and support the Town of Basalt’s climate action goals to reduce emissions 25% by 2025 and 80% by 2050.”

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The project intends to improve infrastructure to make recreation experiences easier and safer along the Willits Lane corridor for users of all ages, abilities, and modes of transportation. It also looks for spaces for different transportation methods, like e-bikes, for the town of Basalt to meet its climate action goals.

“The most exciting thing is that we’re going to take all this input and put some preferred options together for improvements,” said Basalt Planning Director Michelle Bonfils Thibeault, a member of the project team. “Temporary improvements, so kind of like, what’s over by 7-11, stuff like that might pop up in different forms. We really need help with some of the most problematic intersections until we do improvement construction.”

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Basalt’s design firm, Alta Planning + Design, presented concepts, along with Thibeault and other town officials, at the open house. 

The first plan is to add protected bike lanes along Willits Lane. The lanes, 4-foot-wide with 2-foot buffers, will have safety features like rectangular rapid flashing beacons and lighting on crosswalks for safer bike and pedestrian crossings.

The second plan is to create a multi-use path along Willits Lane. The path would be 7-feet-wide in order to separate pedestrians from bicyclists. Pathway lighting would line the multi-use path, and rectangular rapid flashing beacons for safer bike and pedestrian crossings would also be installed.

“These are all great plans, and we’re eager to have something done,” Willits Lane resident Charles Reed said. “Slow traffic down. Willits Lane was never designed for that. Right now, people in big trucks go 50 miles an hour down the road, and it’s just super dangerous. They’re noisy. I think they’re working to a solution, and it’s very nice.”

Some community members, however, voiced concerns that they did not want as many lights or no lights due to interference with Basalt’s dark skies. A solution to this would be dark sky compliant lighting.

Temporary improvements were also presented. These improvements will be put into place as the Basalt works to decide on which plan garnered the most community support, gather additional feedback, and create a budget and timeline for the plan.

The improvements — low cost, quick build, and temporary, presenters noted — include enhanced artistic sidewalks, painted intersections, curb extensions, pedestrian lanes, live display speed radar sign, and parklets.

Next steps for Basalt after Wednesday’s open house include refining and phasing the preferred Willits Lane concept from September to November. In the new year, the town plans to install the temporary improvements. 

Community input was already considered in an initial round in April of this year at an open house held at The Arts Center at Willits.

The most important themes that emerged at this open house were traffic speeding on Willits Lane, poor lighting, rafting traffic blocking the trail, and pathway maintenance.

Desired improvements that came out of the open house were raised crossings, pedestrian refuge islands, speed tables, and rectangular flashing beacons.