Glenwood's dilemma: officials debate merits of a bypass to ease traffic, invigorate downtown.

• Author: Peterson, Eric
• Position: STATE of the STATE

THE "MOST FUN TOWN IN AMERICA" according to Rand McNally. Glenwood Springs has just about all of the pieces in place. In town, there's the landmark Glenwood Hot Springs Pool, the largest in the U.S. and above it, the ever-expanding Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park, which opened the country's highest-altitude roller coaster (7.160 feet above sea level) above town this summer. Then you have the Colorado River running through adjacent Glenwood Canyon, complete with whitewater rafting, bike trails, and natural beauty to spare, as well as historic hotels. mom-and-pop motels, and a roster of increasingly good restaurants. And, of course. Doe Holliday's grate.

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But there is one notably missing ingredient in the perfect Colorado-tourist-town formula here: a vibrant downtown. The main problem is the heavy traffic that zips through en route to Aspen. On a peak day, Colorado State Highway 82 can see as many as 40,000 vehicles cross the river and the railroad tracks and cut right through the heart oldie central business district, whether the drivers have any intention of stopping or not.

A solution could be on its wav. The old Grand Avenue Bridge, with its antiquated 9-foot-wide lanes (the federal standard is 12.5 feet), is slated to get a $58 million replacement and an entirely new footprint. After a year of public outreach. the Colorado Department or Transportation has settled on the preferred alternative: Instead of the state highway looping through several blocks of north Glenwood Springs via 6th Street, the bridge will take off from a new roundabout closer to the current 1-70 exit at mile marker 116 on a diagonal route over the river, and intersect with Grand Avenue at the same basic place as the existing bridge south of the river. The old curlicue of a route will he spared the constant pulse of traffic exiling 1-70 en route to Aspen, at least until you get downtown.

The old bridge dates to 1952, when it debuted as a two-lane bridge with sidewalks. Jackhammers made rubble of the sidewalks in the late 1960s to make way for another lane: the pedestrian bridge from the north side of the city to downtown came in 1985. Today the bridge has a sufficiency rating of 47.4 on a zero to 100 scale, it's like a dashboard indicator," says Joseph Elsen, project manager with We Colorado Department of Transportation. "When it gets below, 50, it means 'check bridge.'" The rating made it a target for replacement as part of CDOT's Colorado Bridge...