The Traffic Variance

Argument Against the Level of Service (LOS) Variance

The applicant's request to bypass the County's Level of Service standards should be firmly denied due to failing physical infrastructure and a drastic, previously undisclosed increase in projected traffic:

• Underreported Traffic and a 37% Jump in Volume: 

  1. The developer's original December 2025 Traffic Impact Study severely underreported the project's traffic by improperly classifying all 111 units under the "Affordable Housing" label (ITE Code 223), resulting in an estimate of only 534 daily trips. 

  2. The revised January 2026 study corrects this misclassification, splitting the development into 18 Townhomes, 79 Low-Rise Multifamily units, and only 14 Affordable Housing units. 

  3. This correction reveals that the project will actually generate 732 daily trips—a 37% increase in traffic that was missing from the initial application. 

The County should not grant a variance for a project when the foundational data regarding its impact was initially suppressed.

• Admission of Physical Infrastructure Failure (Queueing): 

  1. The applicant's previous claim that all vehicle queues would remain safely within existing turn lane lengths through 2050 has been retracted. 

  2. The revised January 2026 study explicitly admits that the northbound dual left-turn lanes at the SH-82 and El Jebel Road intersection will physically overflow. 

  3. While these lanes only have 225 feet of storage capacity, the applicant's own engineer now admits the vehicle queue will stretch to 258 feet by 2028 and to a massive 362 feet by 2050. 

Adding 732 daily trips to a failing intersection network exacerbates gridlock and creates severe safety hazards as vehicles back up into through-traffic lanes.

• Persistent "LOS F" (Failing) Conditions: 

  1. The revised data proves that the adjacent intersections currently fail to meet County Standards. 

  2. Both the original and revised studies confirm that the minor street approaches at the unsignalized SH-82 & Valley Road/J W Drive intersection currently operate at Level of Service (LOS) F, meaning there are long delays and a poor level of service.
     
     

• Unfunded Highway Expansion Required: 

  1. By 2050, the signalized SH-82 & El Jebel Road intersection will drop to LOS E in the afternoon peak hour. 

  2. To handle this future volume, SH-82 would need to be widened to three lanes in each direction just to maintain basic functionality.

The County should not approve variances that dump 732 new daily trips onto a corridor requiring a massive, unfunded highway expansion

Argument Against the Holland & Hart Access Letter

The Holland & Hart letter attempts to justify why the EJ Crossing Project cannot provide two daily-use access roads, asking instead to rely solely on J.W. Drive for everyday traffic and a locked, emergency-only gate on Gillespie Avenue. This request should be firmly rejected based on the severe traffic realities revealed in the January 2026 Traffic Impact Study.

1. Funneling Massive Traffic Through a Single Access Point is Unsafe

• The Letter’s Claim: The applicant intends to use J.W. Drive as the singular primary route for daily vehicle ingress and egress, as Highway 82 is prohibitive and other roads are legally unavailable.

• The Counter-Argument: The revised January 2026 Traffic Study reveals this project will generate 732 daily vehicle trips (a 37% increase from their original claims). Funneling 100% of these trips exclusively through J.W. Drive is a massive safety hazard because the intersection of J.W. Drive/Valley Road and SH-82 already operates at a failing Level of Service (LOS F). Dumping 732 trips onto a single road that feeds directly into a failing intersection guarantees severe gridlock and trapped residents.

2. "Developer Preference" is Not a Hardship

• The Letter’s Claim: Eagle County Roadway Standards state that both points of access "should be open and available for daily use". However, the applicant argues that using Gillespie Avenue for everyday vehicular use is "not practical" in part due to Aspen One's own "site planning and traffic circulation preferences".

• The Counter-Argument: A developer's design preferences or failure to secure adequate property easements during their due diligence is a self-created problem, not a legal hardship. The dual-access regulation is a critical public safety mandate designed to ensure that if one road becomes impassable, properties still have access. The County cannot waive a vital safety requirement simply because it conflicts with the developer's preferred site plan.

3. Breakaway Emergency Access is Insufficient for this Scale

• The Letter’s Claim: Because the developer claims a second daily-use road is "not possible," they are asking to default to the absolute minimum standard: a secondary emergency access equipped with "breakaway barriers" intended only for fire and rescue vehicles.

• The Counter-Argument: Relying on a locked emergency gate is grossly inadequate for a high-density, 111-unit project. The January 2026 Traffic Study admits that surrounding infrastructure is failing, including severe physical queueing at the SH-82 & El Jebel Road intersection (where the turn lane queue will stretch to 362 feet by 2050). If J.W. Drive is blocked by an accident or severe congestion, standard civilian commuters will be entirely trapped because the only other exit is locked behind breakaway barriers.

Conclusion

The Holland & Hart letter ultimately proves that the Site does not have the legal or physical access required to safely support a massive, high-density development. Rather than requesting variances and relying on "good faith efforts" to secure emergency-only easements, the developer must reduce the density of the project to a level that a single point of access can safely accommodate.

Notice: This information was prepared using Artificial Intelligence to synthesize and organize public records from published data, CORA responses, and other relevant documents.  While this tool assists in identifying patterns and structuring data, users should perform their own independent verification of quotes, dates, and technical data points against the official Eagle County case file before using this information in formal testimony or legal filings.