Much to my surprise, I had to push my way through the folks standing in the doorway to the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners meeting room on September 18.
The surprise derived partly from the fact that this was not a “regular” BOCC meeting. Instead, it was scheduled merely as a “work session” — the kind of BOCC meeting that normally attracts a couple of media reporters, and maybe a couple of County employees.
But that’s what happens when you start talking about roads in Archuleta County. People turn out to voice their opinions, and very often, their frustrations.
In this case, the standing-room-only crowd had been generated by a letter written by Archuleta County Public Works Director Bob Perry. Bob is a professional engineer, and he tends to view the world through an engineer’s lens. That works just fine in most instances, since the main job of the Road & Bridge Department is to take care of certain community roads, and we assume that taking care of roads is largely a matter of analyzing materials and calculating drainage patterns and turn radii.
But sometimes, things get political. As they did on Tuesday morning, September 18.
I had not seen Mr. Perry’s letter, but I gathered from the ensuing discussion that he had recommended a reduction in truck traffic on Bristlecone Drive, in the Timber Ridge subdivision, near the Pagosa Springs Medical Center. According to Mr. Perry, the garbage truck traffic on Bristlecone was helping to destroy the asphalt pavement on that road.
But Bristlecone is one of only three routes to the Main County Landfill at the far end of Trujillo Road. Here’s the location of the County landfill, relative to Pagosa Springs:
You don’t want to put a landfill right in the middle of a residential area. We understand that. You want your landfill to be out of sight, out of mind.
But here’s where the majority of the Pagosa Springs population lives:
Delivering the trash from our main population centers to the County landfill requires access to Trujillo Road. The trucks can use Bristlecone Drive, for example. Mr. Perry apparently dislikes that alternative. But any reduction in truck traffic on Bristlecone forces truck traffic onto other community roads.
One possible alternate route goes through downtown Pagosa Springs, down South 8th Street and up Apache Street to Trujillo Road (County Road 500).
This route, through downtown Pagosa, would send heavy trucks through a residential neighborhood and near the Pagosa Springs High School.
Another access to Trujillo Road is down South Pagosa Boulevard, continuing along Buttress Avenue and then along Cascade Avenue.
But this is not an allowable access for heavy garbage trucks, because the easement for Cascade Avenue was granted by the Alpine Cascade Ranch, through their ranch property, with an agreement that truck traffic wouldn’t be allowed on Cascade Avenue.
The only other convenient access to Trujillo Road is via Bristlecone Drive. Where the asphalt pavement is now being tortured.
This route, like the other two routes, passes through a residential neighborhood. The southeastern end of Bristlecone also passes through Alpine Cascade property, but the easement didn’t include a stipulation preventing truck traffic. Or so we were told.
The main problem facing the residents living along these three routes is pretty basic. The County government built the community’s landfill at the far end of Trujillo Road, but didn’t ever construct a reasonable access road. Garbage trucks headed for the landfill must drive their loads through one residential neighborhood or another.
And heavy truck destroy roads. Goes without saying.
Apparently, Public Works Director Bob Perry had made a recommendation to the BOCC that the heavy through-traffic garbage trucks ought to be prohibited from using Bristlecone Drive. His recommendation was related to the poorly-installed asphalt pavement on that subdivision road, and a desire to preserve the asphalt for as long as possible.
We also heard, from Timber Ridge residents, that the trucks travel at high speeds through the subdivision, causing safety concerns.
When I walked in to the September 18 work session, the commissioners were listening to local activist JR Ford, who has helped manage the Alpine Cascade Ranch for the past couple of decades or so. The Ranch is composed of about two dozen sizable parcels south of the Town of Pagosa Springs — according to the County Assessor’s map — and appears to be larger than the Town of Pagosa Springs itself.
Mr. Ford: “If you close down Bristlecone, and then push the truck traffic over onto Cascade — like Mr. Perry is suggesting — are you not picking one subdivision over the other? I mean, you made agreements with the people who [donated easements to the County] and now, all of a sudden, you’re saying that one road is more important than another.
“If you take the long route, through Meadows subdivision to Cascade, there are more than 80 parcels along that route. There are only 42 parcels if you go through Timber Ridge. So you would be affecting way more property owners [using Cascade.]
“Also, when you put those trucks on a gravel road [like Cascade] instead of a paved road, you’re creating all kinds of dust issues.
“So I think Mr. Perry is trying to protect an asphalt road, and what I’m seeing, as a County citizen, is you guys spending all this money on asphalt roads, to keep them maintained for small subdivisions — and those of us who live on gravel roads become second-class citizens. The majority of the money that goes into the Road & Bridge budget now goes to existing roads that are asphalt, because you say those are more important than the existing gravel roads in the county.
“There’s a philosophy that I’m seeing in the County — that we’re going to push traffic off of a road because it’s asphalt, and put it onto gravel roads. But the burden is much worse on a gravel road.
“Bristlecone is a shorter route. If you’re actually looking at the impacts on roads, Bristlecone is a much shorter route, than it is to go all the way around.”
The problem facing the BOCC, however, is more complicated than simply picking the shortest route. As Mr. Ford notes, it’s a problem of road philosophy. Or lack thereof.