Everyone who drives downtown Estes Park during tourist season knows about our overwhelming traffic congestion. For instance, Elk Fest 2024 turned a five-minute trip to Safeway into a 40-minute exercise in patience.
This is not just inconvenient – it threatens our public safety. Imagine first responders trying to penetrate that gridlock for any emergency west of downtown.
Over the last year, a consultant has been developing a 20-year Master Plan for Transportation in the Estes Valley. The near-final draft of the Estes Park 2045 Transportation Plan is now up for public comments, the last chance before approval by the Town Trustees.
[To weigh in on the planning process, click here for the Multimodal Transportation Plan, and click here for the Transit Development Plan by Jan. 3.]
Before you weigh in, I would like to point out some problems with the emerging plan.
The plan neither acknowledges nor addresses our congestion. This is because the traffic needs analyses are based on data from April. As we all know, April is one of the slowest months for tourism, which dominates our economy and our traffic patterns.
In high season, 25,000 to 50,000 daily visitors join our roughly 12,000 year-round Estes Valley residents, to say nothing of seasonal workers and summer residents. Sidestepping accurate data leaves our Department of Public Works and our Trustees without realistic guidance for dealing with the high-season congestion that paralyzes our community.
The plan’s transit needs analysis is based on demographics from census data (also April), which misses most of our nearly 5,000 seasonal workers. This includes many of our most diverse and underserved residents, those most likely to need and use transit. By ignoring seasonal workers, the transit analysis seriously underestimates the demand for and value of transit in the Estes Valley.
The plan is structured around building out infrastructure. It includes many much-needed facilities for pedestrians and bicycles. But it does not integrate transit improvements that would complement the infrastructure projects, alleviate many problems, and transform our transportation system.
For instance, many mountain tourist towns are moving towards park-at-the-periphery + shuttles to provide access to pedestrian-friendly downtowns. In this model, improved transit eliminates the need for downtown traffic and parking projects. By considering transit separate from infrastructure, the Town cannot balance the cost-benefit of transit vs infrastructure improvements.
The plan really has no vision for what transportation could or should look like 20 years from now, let alone strategies for how to get there.
Admittedly, the future is as yet unwritten for us all. But, given the environmental changes that we can see around us, the plan should at least acknowledge the need for alternatives to current practices, and to the long game. As it stands, this plan is just a complacent recipe for business as usual.
It is hard to see how an incomplete picture of our as-is state can lead to a better to-be state. I urge you to read the plan thoroughly, ask who and what has been left out, and then leave comments. Also, send those comments to our mayor and/or your favorite trustee.
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