Subsidies for Billionaires.... letter to the editor

$800,000

Under the fig leaf of reducing cars in Aspen we are poised to subsidize a multi billion dollar company with $800,000. Do we get stock options with that?

1. Rideshare does not reduce vehicular  traffic- anywhere. If it’s successful it increases the number of vehicles.
2. Rideshare has about 5 drivers in the valley.  We have no drivers because there isn’t any money in it. Want to increase the number of drivers? Have our 300 City staff take one rideshare a week. I can give you coupons.
3. Rideshare does not reduce your carbon footprint (see point #1) if you want to reduce the carbon footprint - subsidize some electric cars with that $800K- for the police force, for existing livery services, gift the down payment to 800 lucky Aspen citizens for their first electric car.. (have an EV lottery instead of an APCHA lottery) … any one of these would reduce our carbon footprint.
4. Airports, airports, airports. It’s about the airports…. and if you really want to reduce the number of cars during ski season you will take one of those mini buses and start direct bus service from baggage claim to Aspen. Next open communication between Grand Junction, Eagle, DIA and Aspen airport transit authorities when ever there is an airport closure to stop “dead heading” aka one way trips and returning to Aspen empty.
5. High volume events like Xgames, New Year’s Eve, Food & Wine bring in rideshare drivers (mostly from Denver) …. drivers without local business licenses and without local knowledge (hilarity ensues when they try and use GPS in the RFV). That’s where your “new” drivers come from… places with a lower cost of living … just like the rest of the service industry… which means … you guessed it… more traffic.

Rideshare is a free market business model with a lot of venture capital and to date only successful in a high volume urban 24/7/365 environment. We are rural resort with a seasonal economy and marginal connectivity…. and chances of having enough empirical data to find trends for our economy are slim to none… Do not try and shovel an $800K metro model into an Aspen size sack. 

See the previous post for more "mobility" talk.

Mobility letter to the editor

Mobility lab $2.5 million…. and another “ask” on the ballot for RFTA… uhhuh.

No, I don’t believe that a cappuccino machine at Brush Creek will reduce the number of cars in Aspen. I believe what would help is a reliable public transportation service where you never wait more than 10 minutes, which does not use hwy 82 (please, no more HOV on the right,  ever), which scales the size of transport to the number of riders and which is Green. R&Ding that type of solution is worth $2.5 mil.

Repeating old LTEs: pay for the bus with a credit card or phone at every stop.  Buying passes in Aspen or paying with cash is sooooo 20th century.

Have a  small buses picking up direct from baggage claim at the airport and going into Aspen. Our guests can’t find the bus stop, they can’t find the underground passageway; and they’re constantly trying to cross 82 at one of the most dangerous intersections on the most dangerous road in the State. It doesn’t matter that the bus is free if they can’t find it or they die trying.

Have a local bus which meets up with Bustang. That would be “local” not just BRT because if you can walk to a local stop that bus will not connect to a BRT in time to get you to Bustang.

Let’s add late night down valley buses for the “worker bees” who leave after closing time. Make it a “quiet bus”.

Driving livery - both limo and rideshare- for 3 years the greatest opportunity  I can see to conserve is when the airport is closed (snow, wind, wildfire- whatever). There are just as many people trying to get into Aspen as trying to get out and yet most of us drive to another airport and come back empty. The answer is simple- the implementation is difficult- a dispatch service which all livery services can opt into for all Colorado airports. This would match riders to incoming drivers who want to return home. It could cut the number of livery vehicles down by half. It could reduce the traffic just when the roads are the most dangerous.

Trying to change behavior rarely works. Plugging existing behavior into new easier patterns... that has potential. JM2¢

Plus ça change.... 

Car-mmonsense, letter to the editor

I attended Tony Dutzik’s presentation on transportation and mobility Wednesday. After a nod to Henry Ford and the first “transportation revolution”

 

This actually happened in a Hotel Pool on Main Street a few years back....

we heard about the usual suspects: self driving cars, bikeshare, car pooling, on demand apps…

 

RFTA's concrete eggs where the money went instead of developing a transit app 

or RFTA vending machines at bus stops.

and the final solution… ban the private car from the city limits.


The biggest bumps in the road to a car-less future were  “the service worker or other low income folks.” We were told that the social engineering was too broad a topic for the presentation.

Really??? Luckily there were no projectiles for me to throw and I haven’t body slammed anyone since a brief stint as a nose guard for a women’s football team in college.

Self driving cars are easy just try inventing a self repairing sewer line.  Ban everyone without a commercial license plate and you ban blue collar. You ban the construction worker’s truck. You ban the electrician’s van. You ban the maid’s car of cleaning supplies. You ban every independent contractor and freelancer who travels with their shop on their back.

Sure if service workers could afford to live in town it would be a different story but the average cost of a single family home in Aspen last year was $6.2 mill- not a lot of service industry workers can handle that mortgage. Sooo…. you ban the commuters who keep our “quaint little mountain town” running.

Terminal Täsch outside of Zermatt where you park your car

The intro to “transportation and mobility” was Henry Ford and the Model T;  but the Model T wasn’t just about car vs horse or an assembly line Ford also increased the wages of his employees so they could buy the car they were building.

Start there- improve quality of life and revitalize the community or all that vitality will find someplace easier and more welcoming to thrive.  Just talk to the Pitkin County workers in the temporary digs in Basalt- the new County offices which are being built in Aspen do not hold as much appeal as a short commute to Basalt. Our priorities should not be fewer cars. Our priorities should be more time with your family and more time enjoying this fantastic valley.

"Density makes all of these systems work better" but density doesn't make the quality of life in the Roaring Fork Valley better.  We need to find solutions which do not compromise the best of what we already have.