Aspen Transit

Having people fly in to Aspen from around the country for vacation is never going to be the most ecologically sound practice, but it's worth mentioning that the city seems to have a very forward-thinking set of transportation policies. For one thing, the town is walkable with sidewalks, reasonable traffic lights, and there seems to be some effort to make parking facilities relatively unobtrusive. On top of that, the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority runs an extensive and reasonable frequent bus network and there's lots of people (myself included) getting around on bikes.

Now of course being a ridiculously wealthy community has got to be helpful in terms of putting together a high-quality bus network in a somewhat unlikely situation. But by the same token there are very few countries that are as rich as the United States of America so we ought to be able to afford to construct one of the world's best comprehensive multi-modal transportation networks.

Comments

OK, Matt, I get the point. You can stop italicizing everything now.

Posted by xbjb | July 2, 2008 11:34 AM

If you haven't been there yet, take the bus up to the Maroon Bells (I think the bus leaves from downtown Aspen, it's something like a 30-45 minute ride), a spectacular place and one of the most photographed mountains in the U.S.

Posted by matt | July 2, 2008 11:36 AM

That's right. Burn tons of carbon to get your rich ass to Aspen by plane, then feel good about yourself by walking to the sushi bar. The damn sushi was also flown in, but maybe took the bus to get to the bar.

On another "where's your Aspen" note, I don't like the white ass that comes up over the horizen in that Obama ad that loads at the top of the site for the first five seconds. It's strange that the campaign would disrespect so many people by mooning us with a big white ass.

Posted by Dude | July 2, 2008 11:53 AM

Now of course being a ridiculously wealthy community has got to be helpful in terms of putting together a high-quality bus network in a somewhat unlikely situation.

Aspen is also a ski town. Ski resorts and buses go together pretty well given the challenges of getting in and out of cars with ski equipment, not to mention driving in marginal road conditions.

Which is just to say that it's not at all surprising that Aspen has a robust transit system. I'd think that was a givne.

Posted by BFR | July 2, 2008 11:57 AM

How did you bring your bike to Aspen? I thought you flew to Chicago, then Aspen? Or did you rent a bike there?

Posted by Frank | July 2, 2008 12:00 PM

Ah, but nowhere near as ecologically friendly as it would be if Hunter S. Thompson had won the 1970 Sheriff race on the "Freak Power" ticket. One plank of his platform was to sod the streets. Imagine how tall those trees would be today!

Posted by gonzo rules | July 2, 2008 12:02 PM

Possible future Matt topic: have you noticed yourself feeling less tired, more stamina, or looser clothes since you started biking?

Posted by freddiemac | July 2, 2008 12:05 PM

Ah, but nowhere near as ecologically friendly as it would be if Hunter S. Thompson had won the 1970 Sheriff race on the "Freak Power" ticket. One plank of his platform was to sod the streets. Imagine how tall those trees would be today!

Posted by gonzo rules | July 2, 2008 12:11 PM

It also helps that a lot of the people in places like Aspen are on vacation. So they have more time to wait for a bus -- that extra fifteen minutes each way does not mean 30 minutes less to spend with the kids or spouse at the end of each day.

Posted by Steve H | July 2, 2008 12:35 PM

RFTA's primary mission is to get workers from down-valley into the resturants and construction sites without clogging 82 with PVs. Most workers can't afford to live in Aspen even with a huge effort to build employee housing, and God knows Apenites needs them some maids, nannies and gardeners. There are busses every half hour from Glenwood Springs.

So actually you could have taken Amtrak to get to Aspen without burning tons of carbon.

Posted by BobFred | July 2, 2008 12:41 PM

In reference to Steve, I am not entirely sure buses take more time. Yes if you only look at the time it takes to go to and from somewhere it is more, but when I take the bus I don't have to circle looking for parking, wait at the gas station, get me oil changed or take care of other mechanical issues with a car. (not even counting the whole I have to work more to pay for the thing)

Posted by nathaniel | July 2, 2008 12:42 PM

Aspen has one of the highest dedicated local option sales taxes for transit in the country -- I believe it's over 1.5%. That's huge. And a huge portion of those sales taxes are paid by tourists.

In NYC, we have a .375% sales tax to support public transit.

Posted by TG | July 2, 2008 12:43 PM

...a very forward-thinking set of transportation policies. For one thing, the town is walkable with sidewalks...

So the neighborhood I grew up in forty years ago was forward-thinking because it, you know, actually had sidewalks? Wow!

Have our expectations really become so watered down that providing what used to be commonplace civic infrastructure is now "forward-thinking transportation policy?"

Posted by sgk | July 2, 2008 12:55 PM

Have our expectations really become so watered down that providing what used to be commonplace civic infrastructure is now "forward-thinking transportation policy?"

Yes.

SATSQ

Posted by BFR | July 2, 2008 1:03 PM

"But by the same token there are very few countries that are as rich as the United States of America..."

Are we that rich when we have a massive government debt that we're all responsible for, credit card debt up the wazoo, and a whole lot of homeowners underwater on their mortgages?

Posted by Helter | July 2, 2008 1:10 PM

Matt, come down to Fort Collins and see what a bike-friendly place we are. Bike lanes on all the streets, bike trails that cut over where streets don't go, and bike racks on our city buses.

You might have to look past the H3's and Suburbans to see them, but they're there!

Posted by Nobdy | July 2, 2008 1:27 PM

But by the same token there are very few countries that are as rich as the United States of America so we ought to be able to afford to construct one of the world's best comprehensive multi-modal transportation networks.

We have. But it's based around automobiles and airplanes, not buses and trains, because autos and planes are more conducive to the kind of lifestyle and infrastructure we value than are buses and trains.

Posted by Mixner | July 2, 2008 2:58 PM

As I read many years ago, to qualify for housing assistance in Aspen, you need only earn less than $100,000 a year. I imagine the figure has only gone up, since then.

So yea, rich community.

Posted by Mark | July 2, 2008 2:59 PM

Having people fly in to Aspen from around the country for vacation is never going to be the most ecologically sound practice, but

It's not like there's a conference of people from one city all flying to a city on the other side of the country, and it's not like virtual reality technology is perfected yet either. If a lot of people from different places want to get information on a specific topic from a range of specialists with opportunities for back-and-forth dialogue and interaction, meeting at a convention center remains the only way.

We hear this whine from conservatives all the time, but it's unrealistic if not just partisan hackery. Expecting reformers to abandon a system while trying to change it is just childish sniping. Quakers aren't required to emigrate from any country with a standing army, vegans aren't required to join PETA, and environmentalists aren't required to live by subsistence farming, regardless of what morons at the Corner think about Al Gore.

Posted by Cyrus | July 2, 2008 3:00 PM

Cyrus,

Sorry, your excuses don't work. Why don't they hold the conference in DC or New York rather than Aspen? Given the fact that most of attendees seem to be government/lobbying types, that would probably involve far less travel. And if they have to hold it far away, why don't they carpool or take Amtrak rather than fly? That would be much more environmentally friendly. The whole thing reeks of hypocrisy, like "environmentalist" Laurie David, who flies around in her private jet telling everyone else to cut their carbon emissions.

Posted by Mixner | July 2, 2008 3:11 PM

autos and planes are more conducive to the kind of lifestyle and infrastructure we value than are buses and trains.

Insofar as we value a lifestyle free of widespread devastation due to catastrophic climate change, then I don't think that's a true statement. Of course, we humans are, to coin a phrase, predictably irrational, so we discount future harm in favor of present convenience. Which is why a sound government policy would disadvantage, rather than massively subsidize, those lifestyle and infrastructure choices which, when everything is taken into account, will do us more harm than good.

Posted by OhioBoy | July 2, 2008 3:51 PM

Also, I would point out that the question "Is Laurie David (or Celebrity X, or, for that matter, anyone) a hypocrite?" is entirely orthogonal to the question "What sort of action is necessary or appropriate to reduce carbon emissions in this country?" That seems blindingly obvious to me, but maybe I'm just weird.

Posted by OhioBoy | July 2, 2008 4:00 PM

Insofar as we value a lifestyle free of widespread devastation due to catastrophic climate change, then I don't think that's a true statement.

Unless you can show that our current transportation policies are likely to cause "widespread devastation due to catastrophic climate change" and that switching to policies focused on buses and trains instead would likely prevent that outcome, I'm not sure what basis you think you have for disputing the statement.

Posted by Mixner | July 2, 2008 4:05 PM

Mixner, do you think that a.) our current transportation policies don't favor automobile transportation over train/bus transportation, b.) automobile transportation does not emit more carbon dioxide than train/bus transportation, or c.) carbon dioxide emissions are unlikely to lead to catastrophic climate change? None of those beliefs seem very sustainable to me.

Posted by OhioBoy | July 2, 2008 4:27 PM

OhioBoy,

Mixner, do you think that a.) our current transportation policies don't favor automobile transportation over train/bus transportation, b.) automobile transportation does not emit more carbon dioxide than train/bus transportation, or c.) carbon dioxide emissions are unlikely to lead to catastrophic climate change? None of those beliefs seem very sustainable to me.

(a) In general, yes, (b) In general, yes, and (c) It depends on the level of emissions.

Of course, these questions are only marginally relevant to your assertion, anyway. Even if the carbon dioxide emissions from autos and planes were greater than the emissions from trains and buses, that obviously wouldn't mean the difference in emissions would be large enough to cause "widespread devastation due to catastrophic climate change."

Posted by Mixner | July 2, 2008 4:47 PM

Thirty years ago, I went up to Vale, Colorado, from Denver for an IBM IT managers boondoggle. The meeting was a total bust, and I wandered around the town - which takes about five minutes because that's how big it was. This was during the summer, IIRC, so there was no snow - off season, so the place was mostly empty.

It was a total - and I mean total - tourist trap. There was absolutely nothing whatever to see or do there unless you were a skier in winter.

I've never been to Aspen, but I'm sure the ambience is pretty much the same, except that more rich people live there, probably.

These places are TINY - even compared to San Francisco, which is pretty compact. Setting up a decent transportation system is probably trivial for a place that small and that rich. It's pointless to compare that sort of thing with, say, Los Angeles.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 2, 2008 5:38 PM

Mixner:
a.) our current transportation policies don't favor automobile transportation over train/bus transportation
I'm having trouble Googling more up-to-date numbers, so if you've got some to contradict this, point me to them. But this story from 2003 says "The proposal ... provides $190 million for federal highway spending and $46 billion for mass transit." So it would seem we're favoring automobile transportation over train/bus transportation by a 4:1 margin. I know that's a very shaky source, but it certainly fits in with everything I've ever read about transit spending ratios.

b.) automobile transportation does not emit more carbon dioxide than train/bus transportation
According to this site, train travel emits less than half as much carbon dioxide than an average (21 mpg) automobile. Again, that source may be untrustworthy, but I've never seen any source that indicates that the two modes of transit are remotely comparable.

c.) carbon dioxide emissions are unlikely to lead to catastrophic climate change
Obviously "catastrophic" is a subjective term, but the IPCC, which strikes me as far more knowledgeable than either of the two of us, says that "It is likely that there will be an increase in areas affected by droughts, intensity of tropical cyclones (which include hurricanes and typhoons) and the occurrence of extreme high tides." Intense hurricanes seem catastrophic to me, but you may feel otherwise.

Even if the carbon dioxide emissions from autos and planes were greater than the emissions from trains and buses, that obviously wouldn't mean the difference in emissions would be large enough to cause "widespread devastation due to catastrophic climate change."
Well, that's ridiculous. That's like a business owner saying, "We're projected to lose 10 million dollars next year, but this proposal only saves us 1 million, therefore there's no point in implementing it." If we limit ourselves to only taking actions which will, by themselves, eliminate the problem of climate change, than (conveniently for the lazy among us) there's nothing we can do, and therefore no need to feel any moral responsibility for refusing to act, and privileging our own convenience over the health of the planet.

Posted by OhioBoy | July 2, 2008 6:05 PM

ohioboy,

But this story from 2003 says "The proposal ... provides $190 million for federal highway spending and $46 billion for mass transit."

Table 3: Net Federal Subsidies Per Thousand Passenger Miles by Mode, 2002:

Highway: -$1.00
Transit: +$159.24

According to this site, train travel emits less than half as much carbon dioxide than an average (21 mpg) automobile.

Table 1: CO2 Emissions Per Passenger Mile:

All Transit: 0.47
All Automobiles: 0.61
Passenger Cars: 0.54
Toyota Prius: 0.26

So, yes, transit currently beats autos in general by about a third, and passenger cars in general by about 13%. But the Toyota Prius beats them all. And the kind of cars we'll be driving 10 or 20 years from now are likely to be cleaner even than the Prius.

Well, that's ridiculous. That's like a business owner saying, "We're projected to lose 10 million dollars next year, but this proposal only saves us 1 million, therefore there's no point in implementing it."

No, it's not like that at all. Your argument is "We'd better switch from cars/planes to buses/trains, or the result will be global climate catastrophe." The argument is just nonsense. First, the total reduction in carbon emissions from even a very large-scale shift from cars/planes to buses/trains would be small, and the effect on climate change would therefore likely be similarly small. But more than that, such a shift isn't remotely plausible. Trains and cars just aren't a realistic alternative to planes for trips of more than a few hundred miles (and not an alternative at all for overseas travel). And the densities and layouts of our cities and suburbs just aren't remotely conducive to a massive shift from cars to transit.

Posted by Mixner | July 2, 2008 6:31 PM

You know, I went to the doctor and he told me I was in a bad way.

Well, I wasn't having any of that, I told him, "Doc, my health may look bad, but if you average it over my entire life, it's better than a lot of people, and besides, next year I'm going to stop smoking and drinking and start getting regular exercise."

I learned that from Mixner, but for some reason the Doc wasn't buying it.

Posted by serial catowner | July 2, 2008 8:17 PM

Yes, we subsidize highway travel less per passenger mile. But it's not as if people started driving everywhere, and then we started massively subsidizing it. People drive more because we subsidize it, and have for 60 years. After WWII, we could have massively invested in passenger rail, but instead we decided to build an interstate highway system, and then not charge anybody to use it. So, of course people drive far more than they ride. But that doesn't mean we're not choosing to spend four times as much money to make it easier for people to drive as we are to make it easier for them to take more efficient means of transportation.

And they ARE more efficient. Sure, IF you assume that automobiles will get massively more efficient, and ALSO assume that rail and bus will stay at the current levels of efficiency, than at some point, automobile travel will become more efficient than mass transit. Similarly, if you assume that we discover a vast deposit of pixie dust whose magic only works on automobiles but not on any other vehicles, then automobiles would clearly be the best option. But if you use any realistic assumptions, then economies of scale mean that, averaged over the population, one big vehicle will always be more efficient than 100 small ones.

My argument is not that "We must switch from cars/planes to buses/trains, or the result will be global climate catastrophe." My argument is that we must reduce carbon emissions, or the result will be global climate catastrophe. And since buses/trains are emit less carbon than cars/planes, we should favor them in our policy making accordingly.

Yes, planes do offer advantages that ground transport doesn't, and can't. But, in case it's escaped your notice, the airline industry has been imploding for the last 7 years, and the reason is that, even without pricing in their environmental impact, they can't make money offering their service at a price point people are willing to pay. And, in the long term, oil is only going to get more expensive. Regardless of government policy, air travel is going to return to what it once was - a luxury for the rich. We might as well start building the infrastructure to handle that now, and minimize the difficulty of the transition.

Finally, you're quite correct that our cities aren't laid out in a way that's conducive to mass transit. Well, that's true. But they were, once. After all, cars didn't even exist at one point. So there's no reason they can't be laid out that way again. It won't be easy, nobody's claiming that. But that's all the more reason to start now.

Posted by OhioBoy | July 2, 2008 8:37 PM

OhioBoy,

With respect to cars vs. mass transit, the fundamental reality is this: Our short- and medium-distance transportation system is overwhelmingly dominated by cars. Cars provide about 96% of all surface transportation passenger-miles. Transit provides only about 1%. We have spent fifty years designing and building our cities and suburbs around cars, not around buses and trains. We're not going to tear down decades of development and rebuild our cities to make them transit-friendly. No remotely plausible expansion of transit in the foreseeable future will eliminate the overwhelming dominance of cars. In addition, transit is, at best, only slightly more energy efficient and only slightly less polluting per passenger-mile of travel than cars. And future cars (hybrids, plug-in hybrids, fuel-cell vehicles, etc.) will likely be more efficient than transit. So even if transit were a feasible substitute for most trips currently made by cars, it would do little or nothing to save energy or reduce pollution.

In light of these facts, there is no credible argument for a large-scale shift from cars to transit on energy-efficiency or reduced-pollution grounds. The potential benefits are small or non-existent, the costs would be enormous, the political will to do it does not exist, and even if were somehow possible it would take decades to yield a significant change in overall transportation usage. If you think otherwise, you are living in a fantasy world.

Posted by Mixner | July 2, 2008 9:09 PM

ohioboy,

...pixie dust whose magic...

Ah, you're "magic pixie dust" guy. I thought you sounded familiar. Just how many different names are you posting under, exactly?

But if you use any realistic assumptions, then economies of scale mean that, averaged over the population, one big vehicle will always be more efficient than 100 small ones.

This is simply false. You're not thinking about how mass transit works in the real world. If you could always run buses and trains at or close to their full capacity, they would be very efficient. But you can't do that. Demand varies dramatically between different times of the day, different days of the week, and different points along a bus or rail route. That is why most of the seats are empty most of the time. Only on busy routes, during rush hour periods on weekdays, are buses and trains ever likely to be full. The rest of the time they usually have lots of empty seats.

Even commercial airlines, who always know exactly how many unsold seats they have on a flight and can adjust fares minute-by-minute to try and maximize the number of occupied seats, rarely achieve average load factors above 80%. For transit buses, it's more like 30%. On average, around 7 out of 10 seats on a transit bus are empty. As long as buses need to run fairly regularly throughout the day, not just at rush hour, and as long as some bus stops are much more popular than others, buses will always be plagued by this kind of inefficiency. The same is true of transit trains. It's a fundamental limitation of all large-vehicle transit systems.

Posted by Mixner | July 2, 2008 9:32 PM

Mixner, one point you seem to be making is that current transit doesn't measure up against the cars we'll be driving 10 or 20 years down the road. There are two problems: first, you can't compare a current method and then say that it's not as good as another one that hasn't come around yet. What would public transit be like in 20 years if we poured resources that are currently funding car efficiency research? The second problem is that the biggest increases in fuel efficiency come from reducing the old gas-guzzlers that are on the road now, driven by people who can't afford anything else. Poor people who can't afford a Prius now won't be able to afford a super-duper future car in the future.

In addition, it's not necessary to tear down all our infrastructure and rebuild it in order to have a transit/walking-based city. My hometown of Indianapolis had one of the best light rail systems until the 50s, when it was dismantled and cars became the thing. But the rail beds remain, and population concentrations still center roughly around the old stations. If we were to put back the rails and stations, the market would probably take care of itself.

"If you think otherwise, you are living in a fantasy world."

I live in Japan, it's working fine out here, even out in the sticks.

Posted by Jeremy | July 3, 2008 12:20 AM

Mixner, one point you seem to be making is that current transit doesn't measure up against the cars we'll be driving 10 or 20 years down the road. There are two problems: first, you can't compare a current method and then say that it's not as good as another one that hasn't come around yet.

Huh? The point is, transit is barely competitive with even today's cars in terms of energy-efficiency and pollution. Transit is likely to be even less competitive with the typical cars of a decade or two from now.

What would public transit be like in 20 years if we poured resources that are currently funding car efficiency research?

I don't know. But we're not going to pour those resources into transit, so the question is irrelevant. The potential profits and environmental benefits from more efficient cars are vastly greater than from more efficient transit, because the car market is so much larger than the transit vehicle market. But transit efficiency will benefit to the extent that efficiency improvements developed for cars can also be applied to transit (e.g., hybrid buses).

The second problem is that the biggest increases in fuel efficiency come from reducing the old gas-guzzlers that are on the road now, driven by people who can't afford anything else. Poor people who can't afford a Prius now won't be able to afford a super-duper future car in the future.

This seems highly unlikely. The least fuel efficient autos are things like Hummers and full-size SUVs and trucks. Those tend to belong to wealthier people, not poor ones. And of course, even poor people are going to replace their cars eventually, even if it takes them longer to do so than average or wealthier Americans.

In addition, it's not necessary to tear down all our infrastructure and rebuild it in order to have a transit/walking-based city. My hometown of Indianapolis had one of the best light rail systems until the 50s, when it was dismantled and cars became the thing. But the rail beds remain, and population concentrations still center roughly around the old stations. If we were to put back the rails and stations, the market would probably take care of itself.

I can't speak to Indianapolis specifically, but the vast majority of urban and suburban development isn't remotely conducive to light rail. Have you ever been to Houston or Phoenix or Las Vegas or San Bernadino? They are mile after mile after mile of low density housing and retail. Light-rail isn't a remotely realistic alternative to cars for the vast majority of trips in those cities.

Posted by Mixner | July 3, 2008 12:44 AM