© 2024 Aspen Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Pedestrian and cyclist traffic increases over Castle Creek Bridge

The city of Aspen hosted an ice cream social at Bugsy Barnard Park Wed., June 1, to get feedback from the public about the new configuration of Castle Creek Bridge.

The “living lab” experiment, which made room for a temporary expansion of the bike/pedestrian trail along the north side of Highway 82, has been in place for five weeks. In that time, the City of Aspen has seen a 67 percent increase in the amount of bikers and pedestrians compared to the same time last year.

“We are seeing a pretty significant increase in bicycles but we are also seeing a pretty steady number of pedestrians going across,” Matt Kuhn, the parks operations manager for the City of Aspen said. “We see somewhere in the neighborhood of 38 to 40 pedestrians going across the bridge a day.”

At this time, more than 32 surveys have been taken about the “living lab” experiment.

“The majority of our feedback is positive,” Justin Forman, City of Aspen’s senior project manager, said. “I think for bicyclists and pedestrians, to have that barrier and to have that extra width, it’s been nothing but positive. People feel safer.”

Several other public events are scheduled this summer, including one at the Farmer’s Market on June 25. The survey is available for people to take online at castlecreekbridge.com.

 

Related Content