The Transportation Coalition for the 21st Century has narrowed down its potential recommendations for relieving traffic congestion in the Roaring Fork Valley to two scenarios: congestion pricing or a hybrid plan that would start with a high-occupancy toll (HOT) lane and work toward congestion pricing. Both scenarios include carpooling and public-transit incentives.
Category: Environment
Aspen Journalism’s “Connie Harvey Environment Desk” is named in honor of the longtime Aspen environmentalist.
Posted inEnvironment
Private ski area proposal near Steamboat divides community
As Routt County awaits the first public hearing on a proposal to develop a private ski resort and elite enclave 20 miles south of Steamboat Springs, there is widespread anxiety and divisions across the community are deepening. Reanna Sullivan, whose hillside home faces the prospective ski area, ticks off concerns associated with many new high-end […]
Posted inEnvironment
Cutting up the commons
As generous and readily available as local land grants were, the Roaring Fork Valley was small potatoes compared with enormous public land grants that mark vast Western landscapes today and could foreshadow a similar trend if the political powers that be in Washington take on the directives and intentions of the current Trump administration.
Posted inEnvironment
Snowmass Village’s wilderness water source poses unique wildfire risk
“There are some quite vulnerable systems in the Roaring Fork Valley — Snowmass being at the very top of that list — that really need some advance planning,” said a senior hydrologist with Wright Water Engineers.
Posted inEnvironment
When the insurance company sends a fire crew
“The fire department’s job is to put the fire out. We come in with a different mandate — to protect the home or commercial building. We apply our skills appropriately, adding to what the fire department is doing.”
Posted inEnvironment
‘The public is losing out’
Working two full-time jobs was taxing, and it’s true that the federal government pays far less than local governments in the same resort communities. But the real push to leave the agency came from Washington.
Posted inEnvironment
RFTA to study how Rio Grande Trail’s railroad corridor can be used for mass transit
The Roaring Fork Transportation Authority will consider new ways to use its railroad corridor, which extends from Glenwood Springs to Woody Creek and includes the popular Rio Grande Trail, to alleviate traffic on Highway 82 and respond to the valley’s transportation needs.
Posted inEnvironment
Carrots won’t cut upper-valley congestion without sticks
The preferred alternative is projected to have a negligible impact on congestion, and in some cases makes it worse. “If that’s all we do, we’re stuck with an hour and seven minutes from Brush Creek to the S-curve basically, and that is not a happy picture,” said John Bennett, a former Aspen mayor and a coalition co-founder.
Posted inEnvironment
Exceptional drought and a ring of fire for northwest Colorado
Firefighter helicopter Steve Cohen said that in his 25-year career, he has seen firsthand fires steadily increasing in size. It wasn’t that long ago, he said, that “we’d never heard of a 100,000-acre fire.”
Posted inEnvironment
Aspen schools look underground for sustainable energy
Waneka said he was not content to go with easier off-the-shelf solutions to the cooling needs at the schools. Exploring options might produce a truly sustainable energy system and reduce fuel costs. “To me, it is foolish not to explore,” he said.