Aspen City Council Puts the Brakes on More Paid Parking

By Mitzi Rapkin, 5-09-06

In a last minute decision and contrary to staff recommendation, the Aspen City Council opted not to increase paid parking in the downtown core of the City. The measure, which was meant to encourage transit use and discourage people from driving, was initially supported by a majority of the five member council. After hearing a slew of negative comments from the public and analyzing its effectiveness, Mayor Helen Klanderud withdrew her support for the measure, tipping the scales in favor of the status quo.

“I have heard very little support for this,” she said. “I have supported this up to this point but there is an entire community that has to work on this and this is not going to get people onto buses.”

Currently there is paid parking in the downtown core with free 2-hour parking in the outlying residential areas. The proposal was meant to shift a three block radius of the free 2-hour free parking to paid parking.

The tendency for some drivers is to park in the 2-hour spots and either shuffle their cars every 2-hours or wipe off the chalk mark the parking department leaves on their tires.

Mayor Klanderud was clear that she did not condone this behavior. “This is not to put a stamp of approval on people shuffling their cars every two hours, employers need to clamp down on their employees leaving work every two hours to move their cars or buy them parking passes.”

Local dentist David Swersky told the council, “Who are we punishing by this ordinance, it seems like the people who can least afford it. Five dollars or $10 a day is significant and we’re already scaring people away with the cost, we’re scaring away the middle class and perpetuating elitism in Aspen.”

The proposal would have charged people $5 a day to park in what is now free 2-hour parking.

Randy Ready, Assistant City Manager told the Council before they deliberated the issue that there has to be both incentives and disincentives for people to use public transportation. The Aspen Area Community Plan actually lays out this model of public policy making.

“The goal of capping traffic at 1993 levels has been monumental in Aspen,” he told the Council. “No other resort town has achieved that with incentives and disincentives.”

He told the council that passing the ordinance would regain the balance between incentives and disincentives because for the last 12 years the transit issue has been heavy on incentive. He also noted that when paid parking was introduced in 1995 it reduced the number of cars to 200 from 700 in the residential area.

The connection between instituting paid parking and encouraging people to use transit was unclear to a majority of council members. JE DeVilbiss said one of his constituents told him, “If you’re trying to get people to ride the bus, just prohibit parking altogether.”

The issue underneath the measure is that traffic coming in and out of Aspen is congested to say the least. In the busy times of year it can take 45-minutes to go 10 blocks.

Most large cities only offer paid parking on all downtown areas. Part of the bigger debate that Aspen faces is confronting and reconciling its identity as a small community, tourist destination, growing Western town and job center for a growing region.

The voices against paid parking were loud, including an April editorial in the Aspen Times.

An issue with using public transportation for some in the community is that Aspen has so many dog-friendly workplaces, but dogs are not allowed on buses. Council member Jack Johnson explored the idea of changing this, but the hurdles are plentiful.

One suggestion to rectify traffic in the center of town that elicited enthusiasm from the public and support among the council was to create an intercept parking lot just outside of town either at the airport or in concert with Aspen Skiing Company at their Buttermilk facility and then offer shuttles into town from there. The Council expressed an interest in talking to Pitkin County and the Ski Co. about these options.
[End of article]