Winter Park’s town council discussed how to address the traffic at Winter Park Resort’s Mary Jane entrance, which has become more problematic for locals and visitors.

On Tuesday, Mayor Nick Kutrumbos started the conversation by saying he had heard increasing comments about the traffic and wanted to make sure the town is on top of it.

“It’s not the town’s responsibility per say… it would be really great to work together (with the ski resort) on a solution,” Kutrumbos said.

The town council has had discussions with the ski resort about parking and overcrowding on Winter Park Drive and Mary Jane Road. Mary Jane Road is a private road on US Forest Service land.

For drivers merging onto US Highway 40 there is a safety concern, especially for turning left on busy weekends. A challenge that the town faces in solving the problem more immediately is the lack of resources available to manage the road.

Winter Park Resort does not have enough staff to effectively enforce the parking. The resort typically has 34 part-time parking attendants, and they are now down to about nine part-time employees, according to council member Jennifer Hughes who spoke with resort staff.

The ski resort has a few plans on parking improvements Town Manager Keith Riesberg said, but no concrete resolutions should be expected to happen during the remainder of the current ski season.

The volume of resort visitors directly impacts the parking issues. Council member Rebecca Kaufman said around 17,000 skiers on average head to the resort on the weekends, regardless of whether it’s a holiday weekend.

Winter Park Drive is another parking issue that needs to be addressed.

The town has posted no parking signs and issued citations along the road. However, Riesberg said some people would rather take the parking tickets as opposed to paying the similar cost to park at the ski resort. Increasing the parking fines may be one solution, Riesberg suggested.

Currently, parking tickets costs $37.50 if paid within 20 days.

Some solutions Kutrumbos offered for parking improvements were creating a stop light or reducing the speed limit. There aren’t concrete short term solutions and long-term solutions would require approval from the Colorado Department of Transportation.

With the potential for residential property development on the Mary Jane side, this could be a key opportunity for the town to begin working with CDOT on some type of solution for the intersection with US 40.

In other business:

• Town Manager Keith Riesberg reported transit routes would change to accommodate the closure of the King’s Crossing railroad crossing.

“We are working on the relocation of the one impacted transit stop near the Solar Townhomes,” Riesberg said.

Stop signs have been installed on Telemark Drive at Lions Gate and Old Victory Road.

• The council approved a final plat for the Jane Creek Condominiums. The Jane Creek project will be a subdivision of 42 multi-family residential homes within three buildings on 1.5 acres along Iron Horse Way.

• Council passed an update to the town’s write-in candidate affidavit and election cancellation deadlines to comply with Colorado state law.