A neighborhood advisory committee consisting of residents along Homestead Drive has been working with the Basalt Police Department (BPD) and Town Staff to address traffic and parking concerns ahead of this year’s summer season. However, after two monitoring periods, Town Staff has yet to gather sufficient data to make a policy decision and intends to see how the summer goes.

“Right now, we don’t see the data lining up with [the claim] that we have a significant issue that would warrant us to go any further into parking, residential tags, or something like that,” Town Manager Gloria Kaasch-Buerger said.

Residents of Homestead Drive have formed the Homestead Parking Committee to give voice to the concern that their residential road too often becomes inundated with traffic trying to divert around Midland Avenue, as well as a place where employees of Midland businesses tend to park. In order to address this issue, the committee requested the construction of speed tables and speed dips to slow traffic, plus replacing the existing 72-hour parking limit with a two-hour daytime parking limit while establishing a residential parking permit system.

Basalt Town Staff has been working with residents of the area to address their concerns. In order to evaluate speeding, BPD installed monitoring cameras during the autumn of last year but stated their data did not warrant additional mitigation efforts. BPD also monitored the quantity of available parking spaces at different times in the day to evaluate parking difficulty for residents. However, they have yet to observe a day without any parking both during the monitoring period last year and so far in the month of May. As a measure to help mitigate traffic speed, Basalt Public Works installed signage including reflective stop signs and flags on Jan. 29 of this year.

While residents have noted that the new stop signs and flags have helped, the committee still requests the construction of speed tables and dips. Basalt Town Staff recognizes that the Roaring Fork Valley is still in its “off season” and present data may not reflect actual traffic density come summertime. For now, Town Staff instructed residents to call the Town should parking become full so that an employee can record the data.

The committee urged Basalt Town Staff to employ some mitigating measures as quickly as possible in order to put the Town in a proactive rather than reactive position. The committee submitted a three-step plan in order to address the issue. First, members requested the immediate waiver of 72-hour parking limit fines for residents with proof of residency and ending the parking limit as a whole. The committee argued that, while the limit is in place for abandoned vehicle control, it is unfairly penalizing residents who opt for more sustainable transport options and prefer to drive their cars less frequently. Town Staff recommended against removing the 72-hour parking limit on Homestead Drive exclusively as it is a town-wide measure and local exceptions would complicate enforcement.

The second strategy is to designate the area as two-hour daytime commercial parking. Third, the committee requested the creation of a residential parking permit system and presented to Town Staff various systems employed by communities like Crested Butte, Breckenridge and Aspen to mitigate the same issue on commercial-adjacent residential streets. Speed tables and dips are a possible long-term solution for the issue.

Public Works Director Justin Forman was reticent about altering the road surface, stating that speed tables and dips pose problems for snow removal. “In some particular scenarios, it can actually reduce parking even further,” Forman said.

“The speeding is a problem in the entire town,” Councilor Angele Dupre-Butchart said. Dupre-Butchart said she has noticed speeding and the running of stop signs in many residential areas of Basalt.

Mayor David Knight echoed Town Staff’s intent to wait for additional data over the summer before taking further action. However, he suggested that speed cameras like those in Glenwood Springs might be an effective solution.

“That whole hillside community was built before Basalt blossomed into what it is now,” Councilor Elyse Hottel said. “I do think that it’s due for some love … I’m very supportive of seeing what the summer numbers look like and coming back together in the fall to dial in a solution.”