Park Avenue - Safety & Connectivity

The Park Avenue neighborhood is a web of residential homes and some businesses. Pedestrians, bus riders, and motorists travel through this neighborhood to access businesses, homes, and recreational opportunities. The next steps for this project are currently in review. For future updates, please follow this project page.

Project Background:

Since 2008, the City of Aspen has been working with local community members to explore options to improve safety and connectivity for pedestrians and motorists that travel through this area. This project has been rooted in the following goals:

• Enhance safety and ways of moving around the Park and Midland neighborhoods for residents and users.
• Engage with the neighborhoods and community to better understand their values and insights, which inform the City’s direction for potential improvements.
• Comprehensively study traffic and neighborhood movement.

The Chosen Path:

At the January 25, 2021, Council Work Session, Council and staff discussed feedback from the community outreach conducted in 2020. Council directed staff to proceed with the conceptual design of Park Avenue as a two-way scenario and realign the east side of the roadway to install a sidewalk.

Key benefits include:

• Accomplishes goal of pedestrian safety.
• Detached trail is aesthetically pleasing.
• Wide trail allows for more uses.
• No change to existing traffic patterns.

While this option was chosen as the preferred option to increase safety and connectivity in the Park Avenue neighborhood, it does come with a relatively high cost as it is difficult to construct, will be an intrusion into existing landscaping and property, and will have some impact on existing on-street parking.

Thanks to the feedback collected through the public engagement process, we will be better able to alleviate the concerns voiced by our community regarding:

• Safety at the intersection of Hopkins and Park Avenue.
• Significant and rising levels of vehicles, pedestrians, and bikes on residential streets.
• Ill-defined paths prompt poor interactions between vehicles, pedestrians, and bikes.
• Poor site lines making it difficult for motorists to see pedestrians.
• Connectivity with other destinations in town.
• Traffic speeds.
• Snow storage.
• Drainage.
• Limited street width.
• Construction and cost of solutions.

Past Information:

All previous letters from city staff can be found below in the "updates" section of the Tools menu. The latest letter from city staff is dated 5/23/23 and reads below: