The Dillon Town Council last week reviewed a draft plan for the future of U.S. Highway 6 that envisions five roundabouts along the corridor through town.

The traffic plan aims to improve pedestrian movements across the highway and improve the safety of left turn movements on and off the state highway, according to a memo written by Dillon Town Engineer Dan Burroughs.

Roundabouts are the simplest way to slow down traffic and create short pedestrian crossings across Highway 6, Burroughs wrote. The plan envisions five roundabouts on Highway 6: one at the highway’s intersection with Lake Dillon Drive and Evergreen Road, another that would create a new intersection with County Road 51, a third at the intersection of Elkhorn and Tenderfoot streets, a fourth at the entrance to Corinthian Hill and a fifth at the intersection with Cemetery Road and the Dillon Nature Preserve parking lot entrance.

Borroughs, at the Tuesday, Feb. 6, Town Council meeting work session, described the traffic plan as a way to help connect the neighborhoods to the Dillon town core, marina and amphitheater across the highway.

“It’s really a connectivity plan,” Borroughs said. “We are a very disconnected community, it turns out. When you really look at it, people have always just gotten around with cars and things, I suppose.”

Pedestrian crossings through the roundabouts would be about 24 feet across, with a center median where pedestrians can stop midway, Burroughs wrote in the memo. The crosswalks at the roundabout would be outfitted with rapid flashing beacons so pedestrians can alert cars to their crossing, the memo states.

The traffic plan also envisions a new recpath along the south side of the highway from the first roundabout to the second roundabout and a new recpath on the east side of the second roundabout to the third roundabout.

“This is achievable in the next 10-20 years,” Borroughs said. “But it kind of starts by saying I think that it will be a good thing for our community.”

Preliminary design has already been completed for the roundabout that would replace the four-way intersection at Highway 6 and Lake Dillon Drive and the roundabout about a quarter-mile to the west that could service a U.S. Forest Service workforce housing project.

Borroughs estimated that the cost for construction of all five roundabouts could be in the $50 million to $70 million range. He noted that roundabouts are much cheaper options than pedestrian bridges or tunnels.

Medians would also be added between some of the roundabouts to reduce head-on collisions on Highway 6, where fatal crashes have happened in the past.

Describing the traffic plan as “super cool,” Dillon Mayor Carolyn Skowyra added that the plan is “exactly what I feel like we talked about a few times but even better.”

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In particular, Skowyra noted that the walkability and connectivity of the proposed traffic plan syncs up with prior Town Council discussions.

“Wouldn’t it be great if we had $50 million today to do this?” Skowyra said. “I could easily be convinced that this is a priority and that we could have a 20-year vision where this is really the goal of future councils.”

Council member John Woods also supported the traffic plan, noting that the Corinthian Hill neighborhood has expressed concern for the lack of a pedestrian crossing at the entrance to the subdivision off Highway 9.

With a developer proposing a major redevelopment of the town core, council member Dana Christiansen noted that there could be infrastructure funds available from that project to help with the first and second roundabouts connecting Highway 6 to the town core.

Council member Kyle Hendricks said he doesn’t believe there is enough traffic to warrant the roundabout at the cemetery and nature preserve and added the Corinthian Hill roundabout should also be a lower priority.

Skowyra agreed that those roundabouts might be lower priority compared to the roundabouts closer to the town core, but she noted that the nature preserve and cemetery are popular recreation areas that can have a decent amount of traffic.

Town Manager Nathan Johnson said that partnerships with the Summit County government and the newly-established town of Keystone could prove helpful in obtaining state and federal grants to make Highway 6 safer and friendlier to pedestrians.

Dillon Town Planner Ned West shared his idea of adding a parking lot for about 70 cars below the Corinthian Hill roundabout that could be used to access the bike path or an access for kayaks and paddleboards on the reservoir. That idea is only conceptual right now and would require permission from Denver Water, West noted.