Estes’ one-way Loop traffic plan about to become reality

ESTES PARK — The reality of the one-way traffic plan for downtown Estes Park is about to be felt by motorists in the tourism-dependent village in the mountains of Larimer County.

More than a decade after the town of Estes Park initially applied for federal funds to help build it and nearly seven years after the project gained final approval from the town’s Board of Trustees, Estes Park’s hotly debated 1.1-mile Downtown Loop, a one-way street reconfiguration through the center of the tourist town designed to ease congestion and speed summer access to and from Rocky Mountain National Park, will see its first traffic diversion as construction continues.

Beginning on Sunday, Oct. 8, eastbound traffic on U.S. 36 toward downtown from the national park will be directed by signage and barriers from Moraine Avenue through the new roundabout at Crags Drive onto West Riverside Drive, which will now be one way northbound. Traffic will cross a new bridge over the Big Thompson River, then reach Elkhorn Avenue via East Riverside Drive, where it will turn right to stay on U.S. 36.

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Westbound U.S. 36 traffic will use the newly one-way stretch of Elkhorn Avenue from Riverside through the downtown core to Moraine Avenue, then turn left on Moraine to the roundabout.

To explain the changes, a community meeting for the Downtown Estes Loop project will be held from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in the boardroom at Estes Park Town Hall, 170 MacGregor Ave. A presentation will be given by the prime contractor, Flatiron Constructors Inc. Breakout tables to answer individual questions will then be staffed with the prime contracting team and all the project partners, including the Federal Highway Administration Central Federal Lands Highway Division, the town of Estes Park and the Colorado Department of Transportation.

This is the third community meeting that will discuss what work has been completed to date, the next phase of winter construction and a new traffic pattern for the proposed one-way couplet.

Next Monday, the majority of the post office parking lot will be closed through the winter with only 10 stalls available and reserved for people with disabilities and official post office business. Parking for the public will be available north of Rockwell Drive in the parking lot, according to a town news release, and extra accommodations will be made for the busy holiday season.

During fall and winter months, crews plan to focus on improvements to intersections within the construction zone. East Riverside Drive will see stormwater improvements, which already are taking place and will continue to offer better drainage. The intersection of Elkhorn Avenue and U.S. 36 east of downtown will be completely rebuilt with new sidewalks and aesthetic additions. The intersection of Moraine and Elkhorn in the heart of downtown will receive new signal heads and improvements for multi-modal travelers. Finally, crews will continue to build the roundabout at Crags Drive, with paving operations scheduled during this next phase of construction.

Next Tuesday’s community meeting to discuss the project in more detail will be streamed and recorded via www.estes.org/videos. Future updates throughout the duration of the project can be accessed by visiting the project’s web page at www.DowntownEstesLoop.com.

In the heart of downtown, Virginia Drive will be closed north of Elkhorn Avenue next to Bond Park. Night work will take place from Sunday through Oct. 6, with additional lighting added. While the crew will take extra measures to keep the noise down, the town news release said, residents in the area can expect typical construction sounds.

The night work, to be done between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m., will involve temporary asphalt operations and excavation and installation of storm sewer pipes. Various streets will see one-lane closures during the work.

After 7 p.m. on Oct. 15, eastbound traffic on U.S. 36 will be detoured south through the post office parking lot and across the new bridge when traveling on Rockwell Drive; the Rockwell Drive bridge will be closed. The right-turn lane from the new bridge to East Riverside Drive will be closed, and motorists will use Crags Drive to access East Riverside Drive south of the new bridge.

Construction, which began in January, originally was expected to begin in 2016, but fierce community controversy and a lengthy process for acquiring additional rights of way for the project delayed the scheduled start of work until 2018, then 2021. New Federal Emergency Management Agency modeling and mapping procedures for the revised floodplains within the project, triggered by the September 2013 Front Range deluge, further delayed permit applications and pushed the start of construction back.