Cars, buses, e-bikes, and pedestrians: How Aspen leaders are looking to make the city a safer place

The city of Aspen held three safety improvement walking tours Monday to address growing concerns surrounding transportation safety. 

During the first tour of the day, the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office, Aspen police officers, city engineers, a parks and recreation ranger, WE-cycle representatives, a Roaring Fork Transportation Authority manager, and an Alta Planning + Design safety specialist gathered outside of City Hall and embarked on a 90-minute tour around Aspen.

“We all know in Aspen, people like their voices heard, and that’s really what this plan is going for because we can look at accident data, but we also want to bring in how the community feels about different locations,” PJ Murray, a city of Aspen project manager, said.

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The tour, meant to identify safety issues and recommendations for improvements, stopped at various intersections around Aspen. In a news release from the city of Aspen, City Engineer Tricia Aragon said that Aspen’s roads are “becoming increasingly more dangerous for our most vulnerable users — pedestrians and bikers.”

Stops

The first stop on the tour was in between Rio Grande Park and Clark’s Market, along N. Mill Street. Various safety enhancements to this area have recently been made, including rapid pedestrian flashers, a pedestrian refuge island, and crosswalks painted at angles.

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Additional safety concerns in this area, however, include blocked sightlines for cars, buses, and bikes, as the flora and fauna in the pedestrian refuge island are too tall, the right turn out of Clark’s is too sharp for bikes, which forces them to go into the car lanes, and the need for an educational campaign on pressing the buttons to make sure the flashers turn on to alert drivers to pedestrian crossings.

The second stop on the tour was across from Paradise Bakery at the intersection of S. Galena Street and E. Cooper Avenue. A safety concern voiced from Pitkin County Sheriff Michael Buglione is the need for sidewalks to be more user friendly. Some storefronts have benches and planters in front of their businesses, which causes additional clutter on sidewalks, in addition to crowds.

“For me, it’s much easier to just walk down the street, instead of bobbing and weaving and bumping into people,” Buglione said.

This drains into issues that Roaring Fork Transportation Authority (RFTA) bus drivers face.

“When we’re training new drivers, we warn them in Aspen people are allergic to sidewalks, they will just walk with their back to traffic, right down on the side of the road,” Jason Smith, RFTA safety and training manager, said.

Another concern for this area is the influx of bikers. Bikers are supposed to go with the flow of traffic. Aspen Police Patrol Officer Lee Malik said he has experienced several near misses with bikers and cars due to the angled parking along S. Galena Street. A recommendation was to remove one parking spot from the street parking so that more visibility is available for drivers and bikers who are using the street at the same time.

Another recommendation was a specific bike lane with dotted lanes painted a bright color, like green, in the Galena corridor. The lanes would have an arrow pointed in the direction of the flow of traffic so that bikers are more aware of the direction they are supposed to go in.

The next stop was the Rubey Park bus stop at S. Galena Street and E. Durant Avenue.

A safety concern in this area was the lack of street lighting. Smith said that during special events, like concerts at Belly Up, there are people all over the streets that sometimes are wearing dark clothes and move into the path of the buses.

A rapid flash beacon was recommended as a way to clearly inform drivers that a pedestrian is using the crosswalk near Rubey Park.

“It’s a big intersection. Both roads are fairly wide for Aspen,” Smith said. “There’s pedestrians exposed for a long period of time, and there’s just so much happening, pedestrians, other motors, bus drivers, have a lot that they can be paying attention to.”

Additional stops were made along the tour as well. The other tours took place from 3 to 4:30 p.m., and 5:15 to 6:45 p.m.

The suggestions made during the walking tour will be compiled into a final report, known as a safety action plan, which “will help city staff and the public understand Aspen’s unique safety challenges, opportunities, and systemic recommendations required to make our roads safer,” the release states. The plan is expected to come out in early October.