During their meeting Wednesday evening, the Salida Regional Planning Commission officially recommended the draft Regional Transportation Plan to Salida and Chaffee County planning commissions for consideration.
The draft Regional Transportation Plan, which can be downloaded from the City’s website, was largely developed over the past ten months with the help of citizens who attended public participation events. Planning staff from both the City and the County provided various exercises allowing people to make recommendations on existing and future transportation systems around Salida. While the City’s comprehensive plan will govern development within the city limits, the Regional Transportation Plan aims to address development extending several miles into the County.
According to the City:
The creation of a Regional Transportation Plan is an important tool that will be used to help guide future growth to prevent traffic congestion, provide opportunities for pedestrian and bicycles, create better connections for faster emergency response times, and increase the safety of the road network around Salida. This plan will also allow City and County staff to apply for State and Federal funding for future Capital improvement projects.
Most recently, the draft plan was amended to include comments from previous public hearings as well as from meetings between planners and the Division of Wildlife, Poncha Springs, and Salida Parks, Open Space and Trails.
Much of the discussion at Wednesday’s meeting stemmed from public comments by citizens who encouraged the Commission to weigh the needs of pedestrians, cyclists and other recreational users. A proposed “collector” route along CR 177 which would parallel the Union Pacific railroad from Cleora to CR 175 was criticized by several audience members, including Tom Jacobson and Lisa Malde. Planners noted that an important function of the plan is to establish right-of-ways which can be cited in the context of future applications for development and that inclusion of the right-of-ways in the document does not necessarily mean that they would ever be utilized.
The Commission recommended several changes to the plan based on the discussion. These included:
- Changing language in the plan to emphasize the conceptual nature of proposed alignments and intersections because any actual construction would depend on further engineering and traffic studies;
- Incorporating school bus routes;
- Noting that collaborative efforts with other entities like Chaffee County and Poncha Springs will necessarily inform any implementation;
- Including a discussion of the order in which development might occur, as well as possible triggers for implementation. In general, for example, an attempt to develop a parcel might provide the first opportunity to implement a planned trail or road realignment; and
- Expanding the discussion of CR 177 in general, and adding criticism by SPOT board member Shawn Gillis in particular. Gillis termed the proposed route counter-productive to local efforts to promote downtown Salida and develop Tenderfoot Mountain for non-motorized recreation.
The draft plan will be submitted to the Salida and Chaffee County planning commissions for their consideration.
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