Traffic-monitoring cameras were installed on lamp posts in the neighborhood around the Aspen Club and Spa last week in an effort to count the amount of traffic — car, bike and foot — generated by the club.
The traffic counting, which will be repeated in March, will create a baseline that will be used as Aspen Club representatives try to convince Aspen City Council and some skeptical neighbors that it will be possible to offset the amount of traffic generated by a proposed timeshare development on the club’s grounds.
In July, the council granted conceptual approval to a plan that would see the construction of 20 timeshare units — totaling about 53,000 square feet — in an expansion of the existing club building and on the club’s tennis courts. The plan would also see 12 units of affordable housing, underground parking, an outdoor pool and new locker rooms for the club. The expansion is being pitched as a holistic health retreat concept branded “Aspen Club Living.”
In granting the conceptual approval, council members said the club would have to provide a detailed traffic study and details for how it planned to mitigate traffic generated by the new development. The council also asked the club to craft legal guarantees that the club would remain an athletic facility should the development be approved. The club proposal will be debated in another round of Planning and Zoning Commission and Aspen City Council hearings next year.
Michael Fox, who owns 35 percent of the club in conjunction with out-of-town investors, hired TDA Inc. of Denver and Seattle to conduct the traffic study. The firm had to be approved by the city’s engineering department. Results of last week’s study are not yet available, but Fox said they would be compared with a similar study done in 2004 to establish traffic trends. Cameras were placed along Ute and Original avenues, as well as near the club’s Crystal Lake Road entrance off Highway 82.
The prospect of an increase of traffic on Ute Avenue, the primary access to the club, has lead some neighbors to speak out against the project.
But Fox believes that if the right steps are taken, the increase in traffic could be offset, or at least made manageable. Although his “traffic demand management” plan is not yet complete, it will likely focus on increasing shuttle service to and from the club, creating incentives to prevent employees from driving and having enough transportation capacity to prevent the timeshare guests from renting cars.
First, the club must establish how much traffic there is now.
“We’ll figure how much traffic there is on the street and then we’ll come up with a game plan,” said Fox, noting that the cameras also captured the number of people walking and driving to the club. The cameras were rolling Thursday, Friday and Saturday of last weekend.
The club could be a leader in the local mission to decrease single occupancy automobile use, Fox said.
“A lot of these levers haven’t been used yet,” Fox said.
But some neighbors are skeptical of the club’s ability to make a dent in the traffic that would be associated with 20 new three and four bedroom timeshare units, most of which would have lock-off bedrooms that could be sold separately on a nightly basis.
Pointing out that the proposed club expansion won’t have food services suitable to serve all the timeshare guests, Linda Nathanson, who lives near the club on Ute Avenue, said she believes traffic would increase by many multiples.
“There’s no dining hall so you would have to go back and forth, in and out,” she said. “People are not going to depend on shuttles ... they are going to rent cars. They are going to want to go places when they are in Aspen.”
Fox has proposed having a fleet of cars available to rent out for day trips. He also is proposing regularly scheduled shuttle service with set pickup points in town, on top of on-call shuttle service. He has not specified how many shuttles this would require.
Employees could also be granted bus passes; bikes could be provided for guests; priority for the affordable housing units could be given to people who agree not to keep a car on site.
But Gary Nathanson, husband of Linda, doesn’t think so.
“I don’t think they can” offset all the additional traffic, he said.
The Nathansons said the problem would be even worse in the winter, when snowbanks make Ute Avenue more or less a one lane road in some spots.
Fox equated complaining neighbors with NIMBYs (not in my back yard) and showered praise on people in the neighborhood who support the club’s proposal, which he describes as the right thing to do for the community. Without the proposed expansion, Fox has hinted that the club could be razed and replaced with riverside trophy homes.
Aspen City Engineer Tricia Aragon said that after the traffic baseline is established, traffic engineering models will be used to estimate the amount of traffic that a development the size and scope of Aspen Club Living would generate.
Fox will have to be specific when he talks about using alternate means of transportation to meet the traffic demand, Aragon said.
“If you are promoting alternate means of transportation, what facilities will be in place?” Aragon asked. “You have to have the infrastructure and the support.”
While the physical infrastructure of Ute Avenue could handle many more cars, “you have to look at the quality of service impacts,” Aragon said, noting that while the road can handle more traffic, quality of life in the neighborhood might suffer.
curtis@aspendailynews.com
