What is the safest way to cross US Highway 6? Avon seeks solution for busy intersection
Avon hosts town hall to discuss options to make Stonebridge Drive, Highway 6 intersection safer
The town of Avon wants to make crossing U.S. Highway 6 safer for pedestrians.
On Wednesday, Dec. 20, Avon senior project engineer Drew Stewart hosted a town hall to discuss facilitating a safer, more efficient transformation of the Stone Bridge Road and Highway 6 intersection.
Highway 6 has seen several accidents, including some with pedestrian fatalities, between Edwards and EagleVail over the past decade. Most recently, in February 2022, a pedestrian was struck by a car and killed while crossing Highway 6 in Edwards at the Highway 6 and Bull Run Road ECO Transit bus stop. In December 2021, a pedestrian was struck by a car and later died from his injuries while crossing Highway 6 at the Highway 6 East and Stone Creek Drive ECO Transit bus stop in EagleVail.
Wanted: Pedestrian crossings
The section of Highway 6 that runs through Avon has four high-use pairs of ECO Transit bus stops with no marked crossings around high-density housing complexes. At the moment, pedestrians attempting to cross to and from these bus stops are forced to run across Highway 6, with no crosswalk or other signage alerting drivers to their presence. From west to east, the affected housing developments on Highway 6 in Avon include RiverEdge Apartments, EagleBend Apartments, River Oaks Apartments, and River Forge Apartments, Riverview Apartments, Mountain Stream Apartments, and Sun River Apartments.
Though there are four main crossing locations of concern, Avon is currently focused on improving one site. The proposed location for initial mitigation efforts is at the intersection of Stone Bridge Road and Highway 6, roughly halfway between the Post Boulevard roundabout in EagleVail and the Avon Road roundabout between Avon and Beaver Creek.
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Use of this section of Highway 6 is only predicted to grow in the future. According to Colorado Department of Transportation predictions, population and traffic along this area of Highway 6 are expected to increase by about 1% to 1.5% per year, making the probability of future collisions between pedestrians and automobiles even more likely with each passing year.
“We have more people on our roads now than we did a few years ago, and we’ll have even more in 20 years. At some point in the future, this intersection as a stop sign is going to be unfeasible to operate well,” Stewart said. “We’re looking down the road and thinking, if we can install this signal now and get it working safely, we won’t have to address it in 20 years.”
Engineers for the town of Avon have been attempting to improve the intersection for several years. The initial plan was to place a roundabout at the intersection, and Avon applied for and received a $2 million grant in 2021 to do the construction, but the project was shut down by CDOT in one of the final planning stages this past spring.
“CDOT came to us at 90% design, about April (or) May, and basically did a flip flop on the roundabout that they approved,” said Eva Wilson, Avon’s public works director.
Slower speeds, safer roads
The goal of the roundabout was to slow cars driving through that section of Highway 6, with an eventual goal of reducing the posted speed limit below the current limit of 45 miles per hour. This is because CDOT dictates that pedestrian crossings cannot be implemented in areas where the speed limit is above 35 miles per hour.
“When you’re putting people out into the street and giving them the sense that they’re safe, if they get struck, they have a 90% chance of surviving at 20 miles an hour. That goes down to 60% at 30 miles an hour, and it goes down to 20(%) at 45 (miles per hour),” Stewart said.
“It seems counterintuitive, but traffic engineers have shown that by not creating that safe space, people are more alert when they’re trying to cross these high-speed corridors,” Stewart said.
One might think that Avon should simply lower the speed limit to 35 miles per hour, rather than implementing major changes to traffic flows on Highway 6. However, there are two reasons the speed limit cannot be artificially lowered.
First, lowering the posted speed limit does little to lower driving speeds. “Studies have shown that, particularly in places where people have gotten accustomed to a certain speed, lowering the speed limit has little effect on the speeds that people actually drive,” Stewart said.
The other barrier to lowering the speed limit is state laws.
“The other problem with that is that it’s actually Colorado statute that changing the speed limit requires a process, and part of that process is doing speed studies to show that people are driving speeds in relation to the speed that you want to change it to,” Stewart said.
To reduce the legal speed limit on Highway 6, a speed study must be completed by the state which shows that 85% of drivers drive at or below the desired posted speed.
“Right now, our speed studies show that people are driving at 47 miles an hour,” between Post Boulevard and Avon Road, Stewart said.
Crafting traffic calming solutions
With the roundabout vetoed by the Colorado Department of Transportation, Stewart held the Dec. 20 open house to hear resident input on two other options: A traffic light at the Stone Bridge Road and Highway 6 intersection, or a pedestrian crossing without a signal moved away from the intersection.
“The hot topic that we are here to talk about and ask questions on is whether a signal is supported by the community or not supported by the community,” Stewart said.
There are also other ways, outside of a roundabout or a traffic light, to slow cars down with traffic calming improvements. Stewart favors putting in landscape median islands to compress drivers’ field of view, which, Stewart said, “tends to make people slow down.”
The median islands would also provide a place of refuge between the eastbound and westbound lanes for pedestrians already darting across Highway 6.
The process of putting in a crosswalk along Highway 6 is required to proceed through three steps. First, traffic speed needs to be slowed to 35 miles per hour or below. Next, the posted speed limit needs to be lowered to match the slowed traffic speeds. Finally, a designated pedestrian crossing, with painted lines, signage, and potentially flashing lights can be implemented, but this stage will likely arrive several years down the line.
“Our hope and goal is that once we get these improvements, like the median islands, that would compress that field of view, we’d start seeing a slowdown that would impact the overall speeds that people are driving, and then we would be able to come back and complete these crossings with flashing beacons and pavement markings,” Stewart said.
Budget and timeline
The budget for the whole project is $3.5 million. The funding is a combination of a CDOT grant for revitalizing main streets of $2 million, a CDOT multimodal transportation and mitigation options fund grant of $1 million, a town of Avon local match contribution of $300,000, and an Eagle County local match contribution of $200,000.
The plan is to prepare the complete design for the traffic calming efforts by spring 2024, with potential construction beginning by summer 2024.
The schedule is designed to allow time to receive feedback from Avon and Eagle County residents, Avon town staff, and Town Council while also making strides toward tangible safety innovation.
“We need to get the design going so that we can start construction this summer,” Wilson said.
While there are no concerns about Avon losing the $2 million grant after the roundabout was rejected, “we need to show CDOT we are moving forward on this project,” Wilson said.
Community input
Several town hall attendees voiced concern about the potential traffic signal and the resulting backups it might cause on Highway 6.
Stewart explained that if a signal is installed at the intersection, it would be a smart signal that was able to respond to the stimuli of cars approaching the light on both Highway 6 and Stone Bridge Road, operating with a combination of partially timed and actuated, meaning triggered by the presence of a car approaching the light.
“It understands that there has to be a certain amount of green time allowed for the major road, and if a car pulls up and triggers it, it has to finish going through that cycle first, and then it changes,” Stewart said.
Once a pedestrian crossing is established, a pedestrian-triggered signal can be added to the light’s cycle calculations.
Avon residents in attendance asked about the possibility of building an underpass or an overpass for pedestrians, rather than altering the traffic pattern. Stewart explained that there was not enough space or money to build such large-scale infrastructure, which can cost tens of millions of dollars.
In response to a question about whether the Colorado Department of Transportation was aware and in favor of Stewart’s proposal to create wider medians and eventually pedestrian crossings, Stewart said he had already been in contact with representatives. “They were enthusiastically supportive,” Stewart said.
As the project moves forward, “we’re going to get (Colorado Department of Transportation staff) a partway design to give them an idea of what we’re thinking, and so they can give us guidance,” Stewart said.
Avon mayor Amy Phillips attended the town hall and shared some insights from her experience with the project.
“This isn’t somebody at Town Council not listening to what the people are saying, it’s us beating our heads against the wall with CDOT for literally 10 years,” she said. “I want to make sure everyone understands that we have to put in the medians to give a refuge place, and we have to do something before we can put in any pedestrian signals, or we have to change the legislation at the state, and it took me eight years to figure that out. That was why the roundabout was a good idea, was because that would slow the traffic down as opposed to a stoplight, which most people have been opposed (to) from the beginning of time,” she said.
Even if the community immediately agreed to putting in crosswalks, it would take “best case three years,” to see a demarcated pedestrian crossing, Phillips estimated.
“CDOT rules Highway 6, and as much as everyone, including myself, likes option two, of just getting the pedestrian access and the pedestrian signals and things like that in, we can’t do it until we change either the speed that people are driving, or legislation,” Phillips said.
Phillips encouraged attendees to email the lawmakers that represent Eagle County districts at the state level — Rep. Meghan Lukens and Sen. Dylan Roberts — to encourage them to promote statewide legislation to address issues along the Highway 6 corridor. However, Phillips warned, creating change at the state level is challenging because Front Range constituents and legislators have different priorities than those on the Western Slope.
In the meantime, Avon will continue to move forward on improving the safety of the Stone Bridge Road and Highway 6 intersection.
Stewart, Wilson, and other town staff are working on creating a new design to slow traffic at the intersection and are scheduled to present their recommendation to the Avon Town Council during the council’s January 9 meeting, which begins at 5 p.m. in the Avon Town Council chambers in Avon Town Hall.
Public input will be welcomed.
“Anytime there’s a town project that’s presented at Town Council, after the presentation, after council questions, and before council decision, there’s always time for public input on every single decision we make,” Phillips said.
