Construction of a new Maroon Creek bridge could be under way next spring, thanks to Thursday’s state approval of $10.4 million to construct the span.The Colorado Transportation Commission, meeting yesterday in Denver, approved the allocation, state Department of Transportation officials announced to cheers at a meeting of upper-valley elected officials late Thursday afternoon.”With any luck at all, at about this time in 2006, we could be cutting a ribbon, maybe,” said Ralph Trapani, a former CDOT highway engineer who is now working on plans for the new bridge as a consultant. Trapani is deputy project manager with Parsons Transportation Group.The design work for the new bridge is on a fast track. It began in September and will be complete before early February, when CDOT intends to seek construction bids for the project. Upper-valley governments put up $1.5 million for the bridge design because CDOT didn’t have the money.”Normally, this would take a year to design. We’re designing it in four months,” said Karen Rowe, resident engineer at CDOT’s Glenwood Springs office.And, typically, funding for a major highway project has been identified long before CDOT is on the verge of seeking bids from construction contractors, said Joe Elsen, CDOT program engineer in Glenwood Springs.”It’s odd for us to be at this stage of project development and have the funding come together at the same time,” he said.Replacement of the ailing bridge has long been on a list of unfunded state highway projects. Its slow deterioration has made it a CDOT priority and Ed Fink, CDOT’s regional transportation director, voiced hope last week that the state would have extra cash next year to put toward the project.The existing bridge, originally built as a railroad trestle in 1888, carries Highway 82 in and out of Aspen.

Its life span has long worried local and state officials, as the highway is the only feasible route to carry traffic in and out of the resort.The bridge’s sufficiency rating slipped to nine out of a possible 100 when inspectors recently discovered another cracked stone pier at its base.

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