The Town of Basalt and the Willits neighborhood are halfway through the second round of community engagement to improve connectivity between historical Basalt and Willits. This process, which started in January of this year, focuses primarily on tangible steps for improving Willits Lane from the Two Rivers Road stoplight on Highway 82 down to the Whole Foods stoplight. However, the project as a whole aims to incentivize alternative forms of transportation to protect residents and visitors and align with Basalt’s climate action goals.
On Aug. 6, the project held an open house at the Element Hotel to present updates to the Willits Lane conceptual plan and receive public comment. The top priorities in the Willits Lane improvements are better cyclist and pedestrian access in the corridor and reducing vehicle emissions in the area 25% by 2025 and 80% by 2050. At the open house, contracted firm Alta Planning & Design offered two design options for the transit corridor. An online survey is available on the Town of Basalt website into September to collect additional community input on the project.
This second round of community input follows the first round of community engagement in April, when Basalt and Alta Planning & Design gathered feedback and opinions to draft designs that meet the Town’s end goals and community needs. The number one cited concern is traffic speeds along Willits Lane. Many area drivers use the two-mile route as a bypass of Highway 82 traffic, and their excessive speeds suppress biker and pedestrian usage. Other concerns included pathway maintenance — the two-lane road is narrow with little shoulder and inconsistent concrete sidewalk — poor lighting and additional traffic generated by recreational uses like raft-loading and launching at multiple points along the river.
Once the second round of engagement wraps next month, the project will focus on refinements of the selected design concept through November. Solutions under consideration include rapid flashing beacons, speed tables, raised pedestrian crossings, pedestrian refuge islands at intersections, added bike lanes on the road or an expanded trail to be shared by cyclists and pedestrians. One of the latter two options will be selected for the final design work next month.
The first, a multi-use path, would resemble the kind of non-car transit corridor widely implemented in Amsterdam and many other cities in the Netherlands, with a 14- to 15-foot-wide amenity zone of trees and sodded earth between the road and a two-direction, 10-foot-wide cycling path. The six-foot sidewalk would be preserved for pedestrian use alongside the cycling path. This option identifies 10 key points for non-vehicle user enhancements in addition to other areas requiring attention.
The second option, a protected bike lane in each direction, also highlights those 10 crucial enhancement spots and pain points along the corridor. However, this would place bikes along the road shoulder, as wheeled vehicles. Small posts and low cement barriers would be set in a two-foot-wide buffer between the four-foot bike lanes and car lanes, resembling sections of bike infrastructure in Boulder, Colorado and surrounding suburbs. The 14- to 15-foot corridor of trees and foliage would still be installed or enhanced between the road and the pedestrian sidewalk. This option includes a planned eight-foot-wide boat-launch staging area between Sunset Drive and Hooks Lane Bridge.
Both design concepts are available to review on the official Basalt website, with detailed notations and diagram measurements. The information page contains multiple documents, from summaries of feedback received to a visual roadmap of the project timeline. All information and diagrams are available in both English and Spanish in hopes of maximizing community response.
The project aims to install temporary solutions next spring from March to May for evaluation and effectiveness observations. After that, the summer of 2025 is slated for the final design phase. Basalt hopes to construct its solution along the roadway in 2026. Visit the project site to fill out the survey and contribute to this community process.
