Estes Park town board could place downtown Loop on ballot Tuesday night

ESTES PARK — A large audience and contentious debate are expected Tuesday night at the town Board of Trustees’ meeting as its members consider putting a controversial plan proposed to ease Estes Park’s summer traffic problems in the hands of voters as early as November.

The “Downtown Estes Loop” project, which would reroute eastbound U.S. Highway 36 and turn sections of three downtown streets onto one-way corridors, is the main item on the agenda for the meeting, which is to begin at 7 p.m. at the town hall, 170 MacGregor Ave. The meeting will be telecast live on local cable channel 12 and streamed online.

The board at its July 28 regular meeting directed staffers to prepare ballot language related to the $17.2 million Loop project. The draft ballot language is to be presented for the board’s consideration Tuesday night, at which members of the public can comment before the board votes on whether to put the issue on the ballot.

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Town spokeswoman Kate Rusch said the board could vote to place the issue on the Nov. 3 ballot, hold the issue for a later election or refuse to put the question before voters. Pressure has come from some quarters to hold off on a public vote until the results of a federal environmental assessment are known. That National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) document, being prepared by the Central Federal Lands Highway Division and its consultant, is an environmental assessment of the one-way loop as well as the impacts if nothing were done. Release of that document is expected late this year or early in 2016, followed by a recommendation on whether or not to build the project.

If the recommendation is to build the loop and a majority of voters approve, the project would proceed to the design phase, according to a media release from the Town Board. If voters reject the plan, the release said, the town would discontinue the NEPA environmental assessment process and decline the $13 million Federal Lands Access Program, or FLAP, funding that has been designated for the project.

Estes Park serves as a gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park, visited by more than 3 million people a year. The park’s main entrance and headquarters are on U.S. 36. To get there, traffic from the east is routed onto Elkhorn Avenue and its tourist-targeted gift, apparel and candy shops, then must turn left on Moraine Avenue, go south a few hundred yards and then curve westward along the Big Thompson River toward the park entrance. Traffic headed out of the park must travel the same route.

The Loop proposal would create a “one-way couplet,” town officials say. Westbound traffic, toward the park, would use the current route, but eastbound U.S. 36 would be diverted at the Moraine Avenue curve onto West Riverside Drive, across a new bridge over the Big Thompson at Ivy Street, then north on East Riverside Drive to reconnect with Elkhorn east of the downtown core.

Besides easing tourist-traffic gridlock, Loop proponents say, the federal money would pay for replacement of three of five bridges damaged during the flooding of 2013. If the bridges aren’t replaced, they say, the next federal floodplain designation could be expanded to include much of the downtown area, raising property owners’ insurance rates.

Loop opponents, including property owners along the affected streets, say the plan would be detrimental to their businesses by steering eastbound traffic away from the shops along Elkhorn and disrupting the peace of homes and rental cottages along Riverside. Some opponents say improving parking options and crosswalks are better solutions.

If the one-way couplet is approved, the town would pay for the project with $13 million in FLAP grant funds and a $4.2 million local match from the Colorado Department of Transportation’s Responsible Acceleration of Maintenance and Partnerships (RAMP) program. If it is rejected, the town would have to give back the federal money and find another way to repair the bridges, but could keep the RAMP funds for other uses.