Discussion on incentive-driving

[i70f...@gmail.com]

test test

[dep...@aol.com]

Incentives work. This is, at most, a forty hour per week problem. Work
with resort operators to reduce by some significant amount of the
price of a lift ticket for early lift riders on Saturday, Sunday and
Monday holidays. Or a free breakfast mid-mountain until 10 AM. Free
early parking. Half-day tickets could be priced to include late apres-
ski dinner. Graduated lift ticket prices based upon the first scan at
the base. People respond to financial incentives. Billions of taxpayer
dollars for monorails or highway expansion? Nope.

[et...@hotmail.com]

Done in conjunction with a comprehensive multi-modal solution, carrots
and sticks could potentially help a bit, but they are by no means the
final answer. Get educated on the real data and you will see that
there is no one answer to such a complex issue. This will take
leadership to plan and impliment a final solution. If you are that
leader, be part of the solution rather than a distraction. If you are
not that leader, move on to another issue and get out of the way.
Either way, stop wasting everyone's time just to make a name for
yourself.

[kjets20]

Senator Romer has lots of "incentives" to keep drivers away at peak
times but I see a lot of problems with this. First, how do you expect
to actually collect the fees? Toll booths? That adds more funding
needed for infrastructure and it will add to the congestion. It will
not reduce traffic enough to make up for the traffic that will cause.
Next, there could be some Constitutional issues involved. Off the top
of my head a violation of Due Process and discriminatory practices
come to mind. Even if in the end the practice is found Constitutional
I will be the first in line to take it to court and tie it up for
years. Having a fee on the weekends will only cause a decrease in
revenue for the resort towns because I for one am not going to spend
$12.00 to pay another $80.00 to ski or go at a different time and not
get in a full day of skiing. A solution to the problem of crumbling
roads etc. is to be more efficient with the tax dollars that we the
tax payers shell out to the lawmakers. There is plenty of money it's
just not used efficiently. I love the idea of rail system but that is
very expensive but in the long run that may be the way to go. I would
hope there would be some real and substantive studies done on the
viability of a rail system. I read one idea about drive on/drive
off. I think that's a great idea. depa mentioned working with resort
operators to reduce cost but the resort operators should not have to
do that. I just think charging a fee to drive to the mountains has
the potential for so many consequences that it is just NOT A GOOD
IDEA.

[greg...@gmail.com]

I think incentives are the best idea. Adding a fine for driving during
certain times will discourage people to drive on the road at all,
which will only hurt us. Offering incentives will not penalize those
who don't change their schedule and will benefit those who do, which
will at worst keep overall traffic the same, and might just encourage
additional travel thereby boosting the economy. There could be an
inverse-toll. People with a transponder automatically get a credit for
driving during certain times.

[ph...@qwest.net]

Maybe the ski areas would like to help with the congestion by running
free shuttles from Denver. Maybe they would like to offer lower rates
during the week days when they have unused capacity to take some
pressure off week end use. The ever greater traffic problem isn't
going to get better on its own and will start turning skiers away from
the sport .

[Sam I am]

I suggest providing incentive to ski area owners to lengthen the ski
day. Along with, provide cost incentive to the skiers to ski off peak
times. The only Summit county ski area I know of with night/lighted
skiing is Keystone. I often ski afternoon/evenings at Keystone simply
to avoid peak traffic. It works great. The incentive would
facilitate building lighting systems to offer early day and evening/
night skiing. This would stretch the peak traffic out over a 4-6 hour
time span rather than the current 1-2 hour peak times. This subsidy
would cost far less than the costs required to build light rail or new
highway lanes and would ease the traffic for all users along the
corridor.

[tbr...@myawai.com]

When we look at the real data we will find the truth. When I70 closes
all resorts loose millions of dollars, this is their cash flow.
Development impact fees to resort corporations should be factored into
the cost of doing business, then model a layered roadway simillar to
Glenwood canyon.

[wje]

These are the only ideas that will work. Fix what is causing the
problem, namely the ski areas, not the highway. Work with the ski
areas to spread the demand throughout the day by having reasonably
priced, flexible, partial-day tickets.

[ColoradoKiwi]

My suggestion is a combined approach for a public bus system funded by
ski area parking prices - which would provide incentives for car
pooling and encourage skiers to use public transport. I have called it
the Mountain Area Public Transport Plan - MAPT.

We need solutions which are practical, immediate and will have real
outcomes. Real incentives need to be provided for car pooling and a
system of low cost/highly convenient ski area/mountain town buses
immediately introduced from the 2008/2009 winter. A related summer
program could commence a small pilot from July 2008.

This would be achieved by a co-operative parking management system
introduced by all the ski areas - managing pricing incentives on a
cooperative basis - and sharing a set proportion of this revenue to a
centrally run ski area/mountain town bus system. This would introduce
pricing incentives into the system - vital to making public transport
an attractive option.

In essence ski buses would be subsidized by car parking fees - which
would also provided a tiered structure of pricing incentives based on
the numbers in the car.

The system would also act as a possible precursor to a the idea of a
Rapid Transit Bus Lane - ie: a dedicated bus lane by I70 - which would
rely on consumers changing their behavior to favor public transport.

The 10 point Mountain Area Public Transport Plan - MAPT.

1. All ski area car parking would have a price and prices would rise
(at least on a weekend).
2. Some proportion of this revenue would fund low cost/no cost weekend
ski buses - eg: ski areas would share 50% of the parking revenue to a
central pool to run the public transport scheme.
3. Car parking would be charged on a graduated basis depending on the
numbers in the car - thereby incentivizing car pooling.
a. Eg: 1 person in car: parking would cost - $25, 2 people in car:
$20, 3 people in car: $15, 4 or more people in car: $10 (all costs
per vehicle).
b. A secondary incentive could be that close in car parking would be
limited to high occupancy vehicles - eg: only those with 3 or more can
park in the closest car parking to the ski area base.
4. The public transport scheme would use buses - operating along
existing lanes on I70 (or frontage roads) but on a convenient, very
low cost basis (to provide a meaningful incentive vs. driving).
5. Buses would operate from RTD Park n Rides in Denver/Boulder and
have no cost or nominal cost eg: $5 return - providing a strong
incentive vs. the cost of driving/parking.
6. Ideally the buses would be modern, alternative energy, low
emissions vehicles (eg: hybrids) with modern creature comforts such as
WiFi and/or entertainment systems (these may be a future upgrades).
These buses could be used by the RTD on week days and leased to the
Ski Area program on weekends.
7. The MAPT program could be run by joint public-private group - eg:
RTD/CDOT with Ski Colorado.
8. Parking pricing would be co-operatively managed by the ski industry
to ensure consistency across ski areas (to avoid one ski area trying
to achieve a competitive advantage). Legislation may be required to
ensure some form of 'industry pricing'.
9. Though focused on the winter a more limited summer program could
also be introduced for weekend services to mountain towns- allowing
public transport to destinations such as Winter Park/Frisco/
Breckenridge and Vail. Towns/Counties/CDOT or others may need to fund
the summer program.
10. A secondary initiative to target the summer I70 congestion issues
could be visitor education. The peak summer driving weekends are
currently heavily influenced by summer driving tourists many of whom
may be able to manage the timing of their trips. This program would
work with the Colorado Tourism Office - communication through their
Colorado.com web site, publications, information provided at rental
car depots, Colorado Welcome Centers, major campgrounds/
accommodation.


Chris Adams
adamsb...@gmail.com

[Cajun]

How about adding a surcharge to the I-70 ski area season passes based
on home address. Ideally we are than "charging" the people that use
the highway during peak times for maintaince or development of a
future solution.

[polar bear]

Two changes I'd like to see that I believe would help:

1. Sell ski passes by the hour. The buyer would receive a re-
chargeable slope time card (similar to a re-chargeable debit card or
phone card). The first scan of the card deducts the cost of an hour
of slope time for that resort. Additional scans within the hour are
free. An hour and one minute later the next scan deducts another
charge. The same card could easily be accepted at all slopes - making
it easier to visit multiple resorts within a day. People would
perhaps be less likely to try and stay until closing if they felt they
were not forfeiting part of what they purchased. Leaving early would
not feel like a waste of money. The burden of changing to a new
system would be placed on the resorts (where it belongs). Secondary
benefit - if you go to town for lunch you aren't wasting expenses on
an unused part of your lift ticket for that time and if more people
did this it would create more competition for our lunch dollars which
in turn should result in better food at the slopes.

2. Require that more of the ski resorts offer night skiing. This
would also aid in a more distributed departure of the masses. Again,
the burden of this change would be on the resorts (where it belongs).

[rpra...@qwest.net]

I don't have stats on how many skiers use season passes vs. buying
daily tickets but I personally don't know any daily pass buyers. I
think the vast majority of skiers have season passes so there would be
no benefit to the hourly ski pricing. Right now, collectively, we are
all getting up earlier and earlier every year to beat the traffic so
this won't work well unless there are more daily pass skiers than
season pass skiers.

As for more night skiing... doesn't this run directly contrary to our
desires and a community at large to reduce our carbon foot print.
Personally I think Keystone should turn off their lights.

I do think there is room for incentives and I some of the ideas here
are plausible. I have some ideas of my own and will return to this
sight after I think them through better. Thanks Chris for putting
this forum together. What a great way to bring out the ideas and
measure their palatability.

[mjpd...@gmail.com]

I am writing this letter to show support for you idea for congestion
pricing for ski traffic on I-70 during peak traffic periods. I think
the idea of trying to expand the road to accomodate traffic volumes
which occur only 100 hours or so a year is a poor one. I believe
that any excess capacity created will quickly be used by more traffic
and so it is not a long term solution. If New York and London can
consider or use congestion pricing within there city centers - I
believe doing so on I-70 would be relatively simple.

I like the Rocky Mountain News idea of using some of the tolls to
provide a heavily subsidized public transportation, bus alternative.
RTD likely has a surplus of regional buses which are not used on
weekends.

[Happy2Drive]

Give me freeways or give me death. Tolls for skiers are regressive.
They would hit middle class skiers hard and go unnoticed by affluent
skiers. That's unfair!

[motown134]

It would seem to make sense that if the problem relates to ski traffic
on weekends that the ski areas should be a major part of creating and
paying for a solution. Why should the rest of us travelers help
subsidize the ski areas? Isn't this a multibillion industry that is
recording record patron and revenue levels? What about looking at
some form of discount program for seniors during the week or for that
matter all day skiers? How about some break on a lift ticket or
breakfast if a skier arrives early to avoid traffic? Let's have the
people who have created this problem, be the ones to solve it.

[savoy.ki...@level3.com]

I would like to see a toll charged to people that do not car pool with
at least one other individual in the car during the weekends.

[Charlott...@gmail.com]

MONORAIL/TRAIN

Making I-70 a toll road will affect more than just the skiiers.
People who live in the mountains have no other choice but to travel on
I-70. This is unfair to these people. It is also unfair to those who
don't travel on I-70. Expanding highways and making people pay tolls
is not the answer. A way to take people off the road is to give them
another option. What we need is a MONORAIL/TRAIN with more frequent
departure times to and from the mountain and that makes stops along
the way. Colorado needs to become more environmentally friendly. A
MONORAIL/TRAIN might be expensive at first, but it will be something
that will make a long lasting difference.


On Feb 20, 12:54 pm, i70fo...@gmail.com wrote:
> test test

[pwhic...@yahoo.com]

Let's think about incentives rather than taxes! Since the ski areas
are the beneficiaries of any program to alleviate congestion, they
should be central to the solution. They collectively as a group
should offer an incentive for people to ski during the week and not on
the weekend. This incentive should be lower lift ticket prices - say
$25 / week. This will certainly balance the load on I70.