Post blogger Barbara Floria Orcutt, a world traveler for Fodor's, has now embarked on her grandest journey of all: to China. "The biggest surprise? After years of avoiding traveling to China because of what they've done and continue to do to Tibet I had developed a prejudice against the Chinese, a sense of their not being trustworthy, an ignorant (on my part) presumption that they were ilintentioned, maybe even mean. The reality? An expected sweetness prevails and is demonstrated by men and women alike. We've gotten our share of stares, primarily because of Allen's cane we think, but for the most part people are extremely polite and deferential, and are quick to return a smile."
"Ban mining," writes Post blogger Mitch Mulhall in comment #3. "Let the bastards freeze in the dark."
The local artist Daniel Sprick -- an instructor at Colorado Mountain College -- is strutting his stuff for the general public at the Glenwood Springs campus.
Posts filed under 'Garfield County'
Although they can be proven false, first impressions of people and places are noteworthy. Here are a few following my first 24 hours in Beijing:
* China is clearly prospering. The roads in Beijing are crowded with new cars, air-conditioned taxis and nonpolluting buses. The streets are wide and clean, at least where we are staying, and although we may be being watched, the police have a silent presence. All things being equal (which they're not), Beijing feels more like Tokyo than any other Asian capital I've visited, and is clearly a different species than say, Delhi, or Saigon or Bangkok. That is, it's somehow more Asian' than southeast Asian.
* The biggest surprise? After years of avoiding traveling to China because of what they've done and continue to do to Tibet I had developed a prejudice against the Chinese, a sense of their not being trustworthy, an ignorant (on my part) presumption that they were ilintentioned, maybe even mean.
The reality? An expected sweetness prevails and is demonstrated by men and women alike.
Continue Reading August 3rd, 2010
Monday June 15th, 2009
The remains of a woman in her mid to late twenties are being studied for clues as to her identity. On Friday, parts of a body originally reported to be that of a young girl were discovered by a teenage boy working in an orchard located about five miles west of Glenwood Springs.
All investigators are saying is that the remains show multiple tattoos and very little else. Garfield County Sheriff Lou Valario says the remains so far do not match the description of any persons missing in the county---and that the length of time that the remains have been in the orchard is unknown.
Continue Reading June 15th, 2009
Everyone’s favorite Hair Cut Salon, Cost Cutters is launching a mobile campaign in several markets across the U.S.
Regis Corporation the parent company of Cost Cutters is running this campaign with a hand full of Franchisees in several test markets. Qittle will be one of 2 companies providing mobile solutions for this launch.
“We are involved in 4 of the markets, Glenwood Springs, Colorado Springs, Central Wisconsin and Quad Cities. We have set up a social networking aspect to this launch as well using Facebook, Twitter and a few other Networks to get this message out to Consumers. You can click on any of the Cities to go to our Facebook Groups. ” Casey McConnell CEO of Qittle
By texting 1 of the keywords to 32075 people can save $2.00 on their next Hair Cut at Cost Cutters. Cost Cutters will send out other coupons periodically along with reminders. Consumers can opt out any time by replying STOP.
About Cost Cutters
Cost Cutters salons are dedicated to providing you and your family with convenient hair-care services by professional stylists who care about your needs. You’ll find more than 850 salon locations across the United States, each offering a relaxed hair-care experience with no appointments and no hassles.
May 14th, 2009
The core premise for a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system on the Highway 82 corridor is that improved travel times will lead to huge ridership increases. There is no guarantee that one will lead to the other, so the real question is what we should gamble, and on which ideas, to find out.
Improved travel times are supposed to come from a variety of measures, and the Corridor Investment Study (CIS) from 2003 quantified the time savings for different components. Reducing the number of stops, known for generations as “express” service, was expected to shorten the travel time from Aspen to Glenwood Springs by 9 minutes, but there is nothing especially “BRT” about an express bus.
The more BRT-like features described as “Queue bypass lanes”, “Transit signal optimization”, and “Transit/HOV priority system” received a combined value of 4 to 5 minutes of travel time savings.
Perhaps most significant, the technology upgrade to automated ticketing was projected to provide a 7.5 minute improvement.
If you do not travel on a schedule, more frequent departures may also save waiting time for the next bus.
Presentations around the valley over the last few months show the proposed BRT system serving about 13 of the 46 bus stops between Rubey Park and West Glenwood. Another 11 stops are acceptable walking distance to BRT, leaving 22 stops to be served only by a local bus. There would be even fewer stops during peak periods, but the bulk of the service will fit this description.
Some BRT runs will originate in Glenwood, and others from Carbondale and Basalt, but the parallel routes of BRT alongside existing local service will create an approximate doubling of bus capacity on Highway 82 by 2013.
We do not know how long it might take for ridership to double, thereby getting the system back to the same level of efficiency being achieved today. RFTA has not estimated future ridership because this step is not required for the particular federal grant for which they have applied. It is not clear why ridership projections were not prepared for RFTA’s own internal use, or public review.
As obscure as the demand side of the ridership question might be, the supply side is not much better. If 42 passengers are carried on a particular bus run, the 42 seat bus that carries them will not be at 100 percent capacity unless every passenger travels the full length of the route. To know the average occupancy, you need to know the average trip length, and RFTA doesn’t collect that information. Since RFTA only knows ridership numbers and not average trip length, the number of seats that are currently available on the existing service is unknown to the RFTA board. This is a somewhat peculiar starting point from which to argue that additional buses are needed to accommodate growth in ridership.
To really understand what is happening on a bus route, especially one that runs a distance like that of the Highway 82 corridor, requires Boarding and Alighting (B&A) surveys. By recording where each passenger gets on and off the bus we learn all sorts of information, including both average and peak occupancy, and the popularity of individual stops. We are then also in a position to do efficiency comparisons with other systems, as “passenger miles” is the most valuable statistical data point for that purpose.
RFTA performed a rough B&A survey for a full day in March of this year, and a more precise B&A sample was gathered privately last summer. The roughness of RFTA’s effort was the result of combining the 46 stops on Highway 82 down to about a dozen locations, so that averaging the distances between bus stops was unavoidable. The precise survey done last summer was a sample, recording only four complete runs between Rubey Park and West Glenwood, but it accounted for B&A points for every passenger at every stop.
Both the rough full version and the precise sample version of a B&A survey show an average trip length of about 18 miles. Taking a couple more steps to convert everything into seat miles we get an annualized average occupancy of about 37 percent for the Highway 82 corridor. There is ample room for ridership growth on the existing system.
The results of the precise B&A survey also suggest why there should be a more thorough use of this tool by RFTA. As previously mentioned, it seems likely that people in Basalt, Carbondale, Blue Lake, etc. will make their way to a nearby BRT stop rather than take the valley local bus. Glenwood residents will only be able to board the BRT near Wal-Mart, which means that Ride Glenwood Springs, their in-town shuttle, will work as a feeder system. That leaves 15 stops at which bus riders will rely on the valley local.
Using the four runs monitored last summer as an example, total riders from the 15 local stops never exceeded six, or more than five at any one time. If RFTA is considering using full size buses for this service, the waste will be considerable. Based on this preliminary data, RFTA could test the theory of whether express bus service will result in big ridership gains by contracting with a private company* to provide van service for the minor bus stops.
An automated ticketing system can be designed to provide complete B&A information. (Have passengers key in their exact destination stop rather than a zone, and issue a ticket even when no fare is required.) The cost is only a few million dollars, as opposed to a couple hundred, making this the most cost effective of the time saving features. An additional benefit is that it makes the bus driver’s job much easier.
Not only is automated ticketing the best of the “BRT” features, it appears to be the data collection tool we need first - to determine whether the rest of the plan makes any sense.
*Disclosure – the author of this article works for a private transportation company.
Next: Part VIII
Things that make you go hmmmm.
October 15th, 2008
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RFTA wants to embark on a major transit expansion plan over the seventeen year period from 2009 to 2025. Total capital costs of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) plan are in the range of $180 to $190 million, and annual operating expenses are projected to more than double, from a current $20 million or so to about $40 million.1
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Currently, total transit expenditures for RFTA and Snowmass Village averages about $31 million per year2
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We rank #3 in the nation for per capita transit operating expenditures, behind New York and San Francisco.3
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If the population of the RFTA service area was a single city, it would have ranked as the 479th largest in the United States in the 2000 US Census. In 2006, area transit service ranked as the 119th largest bus based system in the United States.3
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Mass transit is not cost effective, in large part because not enough of our trips fit the limited-purpose service that transit can provide. Consequently, private companies are unable to offer this service. This is why mass transit is a government program supported with tax dollars.4
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Between 1997 and 2007, RFTA operating expenses increased by 130%. Population in the RFTA service area grew by 38%. RFTA ridership grew by 21%.1
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RFTA is still using the same consultant that claimed a BRT system would increase valley ridership by 176% in five years!!!5
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The reduction in vehicle trips resulting from RFTA and Snowmass Village bus services is probably not less than 2 percent, but is most certainly not more than 4 percent. It therefore costs somewhere between $8 million and $15 million per year for every one percent reduction in vehicle trips.2
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The Federal Highway Administration estimates that 1.6 gallons of fuel is wasted for every vehicle hour of traffic delay. Current policy is to preserve congestion at the Entrance to Aspen to create a travel time advantage for buses. This wasted fuel offsets RFTA energy savings down to an amount comparable to one or two days of total regional fuel consumption.2
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It costs RFTA about $35.26 for every gallon of saved fuel, before accounting for the wasted fuel mentioned above.6
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RFTA is a Regional Transportation Authority (RTA). An RTA is a tax district which can plan for, propose, and fund projects related to “any highway, road, street, bus system, railroad, airport, gondola system, or mass transit system”. RFTA does not have to limit itself to mass transit projects.7
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Both RFTA and Pitkin County have rejected efforts to allow taxpayers to use the initiative petition process to propose highway based transportation projects.8
1Discussing Mass Transit Part V – What is RFTA Proposing?
2Part IV – Cost vs. Benefit
3Part II – How Much is Enough?
4Discussing Mass Transit Part I – Who is Served?
5Part III – Who’s Minding the Store?
6Comment on Part IV – Cost vs. Benefit
7Transportation Planning – Discussing Mass Transit (In Context)
8Transportation Funding
October 1st, 2008
Tonight I attended the Commission meeting and listened as Garfield County Staff recommended against rezoning privately owned land at Sunlight Mountain Resort’s base area. Currently, there are two zoning classifications on these lands: Low Density Residential (LDR), and Recreation. Choosing not to rezone LDR parcels as Recreation effectively kills Sunlight’s base area development plans and permanently limits what base area development can be. In my opinion, you need to approve Sunlight’s rezoning request for several reasons...
Continue Reading September 24th, 2008
The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) plan for the Highway 82 corridor has a large number of parts and pieces, but we need to look at the big picture before moving on to the fine detail.
RFTA wants to embark on a major transit expansion plan over the seventeen year period from 2009 to 2025. Total capital costs of the plan are in the range of $180 to $190 million, and annual operating expenses are projected to more than double, from a current $20 million or so to about $40 million.
During various presentations to the public and elected officials, the feedback was that the plan was too large to absorb all at once, both conceptually and financially, and that a phased approach would be more appropriate. The term “BRT Lite” was first proposed, but RFTA board members wanted to stress that the full BRT plan hadn’t changed, just the size of the first bite. So, “BRT Phase 1” is the moniker for the initial plan which the federal government and local voters will be asked to endorse and fund.
RFTA has not received much encouragement regarding federal financial participation, so they have also developed a plan for how to use the revenue if local voters approve a sales tax increase which is not augmented by any federal grants. The sales-tax-approval-with-no-federal-money scenario is really another layer of phasing; let’s call it “BRT Phase 1 Lite”.
Does RFTA need additional tax revenues to maintain current operations, regardless of whether federal funding sets off an expansion plan that will eventually result in a full BRT system? Consultants prepared graphs for public presentation, one of which illustrates a “Baseline” financial forecast indicating that RFTA is solvent through 2019, reaching a spending level that year of about $40 million.
However, a “Likely Trends” graph line, apparently intended to predict what RFTA will need to spend to keep pace with increasing ridership demand in the absence of a BRT system, shows a deficit beginning next year, growing to $6 million per year by 2025.
The latest Likely Trends scenario, a version developed in May, assumes a fleet expansion of 10 vehicles - scaled down from an estimate of 22 a month earlier! This sudden downward adjustment is difficult to understand, and the ability to do so doesn’t lend much credibility to ridership projections. Despite this, there has yet to be any official questioning of ridership assumptions, or the need for additional rolling stock.
Contributing to the sense that the definition of Likely Trends is highly flexible are those items on the latest budget that went up in price, even after the number of buses went down. The line item “ITS/Transit Priority”, a key technology feature of the BRT system, is on the Likely Trends budget for $12.3 million, as is a maintenance facility expansion at $10.25 million – only $0.5 million less than would be required to accommodate BRT Phase 1.
RFTA’s Likely Trends scenario has become indistinguishable from “BRT Phase 1 Lite”, a significant evolution from its original function as a number representing the response to projected ridership growth. The conclusion can only be that BRT is a fait accompli - even if the proposed sales tax increase is needed just to maintain the current system. The real “likely trend” is that RFTA will continue to grow beyond its revenue base, evidenced by the fact that if they do successfully secure approval of both higher sales taxes and the requested federal contribution of $21.3 million, they will need another round of tax hikes as early as 2013.
The likelihood that additional tax revenues may be needed to simply keep running in place, with no new service expansion, is illustrated by actual trends:
Between 1997 and 2007, RFTA operating expenses increased by 130%.
Population in the RFTA service area grew by 38%.
RFTA Ridership grew by 21%
The most peculiar wrinkle in the financial reporting has to do with the aforementioned $10 million maintenance facility expansion. In a presentation to Aspen and Pitkin County officials last April, RFTA indicated that current maintenance facilities are already operating beyond design capacity by about 19 vehicles.
How then did RFTA develop a Baseline financial forecast that doesn’t indicate a budget shortfall for maintenance expansion and the operating and maintenance expenses associated with the additional buses and vans? This is one of the serious perception problems that need to be addressed by RFTA, and another has to do with federal financing rules.
As explained by Dan Blankenship and Kristin Kenyon to the RFTA board: “FTA doesn’t want the VSS/SS program to be used by transit agencies for supplementing funding for existing services…” Don’t worry about the acronyms, the message is clear. If you want federal assistance you need to be creating a new service, not just shoring up an existing system.
The appearance that the perpetual expansion of service may be related to a persistent underreporting of financial reality is disturbing. Neither local taxpayers nor federal regulators should be subjected to a scheme to finesse current financial needs in the guise of an entirely new service proposal. If RFTA cannot maintain current service at current tax levels, they need to address that situation head on, and completely separate from any new service proposals. Consolidation should precede further expansion.
Assuming local taxpayers are willing to be taxed again to keep RFTA solvent at current service levels, it appears they will be unable to accomplish that goal without simultaneously launching a chain of events intended to increase transportation spending by additional hundreds of millions of dollars.
It may be more appropriate to offer voters a chance to choose between the two.
Next: Part VI
To BRT or not to BRT?
September 24th, 2008
Public investment in highway efficiency should always be the first priority for transportation funding, so long as there are still significant gains to be made. For example, there is no question that improved traffic flow at the Entrance to Aspen, and possibly other locations along the Highway 82 corridor, would save more fuel than an increase in bus service.
In addition, and unlike those transit expenditures which only benefit bus riders, highway upgrades benefit 100 percent of the traveling public, improving our experience regardless of whether we are using private vehicles or public transportation.
It is a huge missed opportunity that RFTA does not exercise its full potential to plan for, propose, and fund highway based transportation solutions. Projects as diverse as the Entrance to Aspen, Glenwood Springs bypass, or grade separated access to Basalt could move forward regardless of state funding delays, and would set us up for future reimbursements from the state that could then be applied to transit services.
It is doubly sad that the RFTA board could not bring itself to even discuss the possibility of creating a petition process as part of their charter so that private citizens could propose plans and funding options to present to the voters.
When advocates for a new Entrance to Aspen were sent packing by the RFTA board, petition organizers pursued the second best option and proposed a Pitkin County road fund property tax that prioritized spending to deal with the worst problem first. While the RFTA sales tax proposal would have required the creation of a petition process from scratch, citizens of Pitkin County already have the right of petition, as established by the state constitution.
For whatever that’s worth.
It is not credible that the county clerk and county attorney believe that the Pitkin County Charter supersedes the state constitution, but that’s what they claimed in rejecting the proposed road tax petitions. They took a purely political stand in order to protect the county’s own property tax proposal from having to face a competing ballot question offered by citizens.
Commitment to democracy among area officials extends only far enough to allow us to pick from their list of choices. The collateral damage of their collective mindset against direct democracy has been the suppression of common sense proposals that achieve their own stated objectives more effectively than the policies and projects they currently support.
*This space was originally intended for “Discussing Mass Transit Part V – What is RFTA Proposing?”, but RFTA is still working on whatever they are about to propose. We pause from that series long enough to offer this background information.
September 17th, 2008
Aspen City Council Member J.E. DeVilbiss is “very ill” according to Mayor Mick Ireland.
Due to his illness Judge DeVilbiss has missed the last two Council meetings, including the one Monday night, and it is unclear when he will return to his elected post.
“He is very ill,” Mayor Mick Ireland said after at a City Council meeting at Aspen City Hall Monday September 15th, 2008. “I am not going to comment any more or get into specifics, but he is ill.”
Continue Reading September 15th, 2008
We have a good box for you this week and some new recipes, let's
hope! We have Cherries, Potatoes, Onions, Salad Mix, Tomato,
Cilantro, Garlic, Kale, Romaine Lettuce, Sugar Snaps and Snow Peas.
Wahoo! It's looking like summer! I think it will be one more week on
one size box and then next week we will have enough food to split
into half and full size. I may change my mind on that during pack
out, we will see.
Continue Reading June 29th, 2008
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