{"id":2444975,"date":"2019-06-04T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-05T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=307433"},"modified":"2019-06-04T21:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-05T03:00:00","slug":"commissioners-ponder-airport-parking-increase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/commissioners-ponder-airport-parking-increase\/","title":{"rendered":"Commissioners ponder airport parking increase"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Aspen airport officials want to significantly increase \u2014 and in some cases more than double \u2014 parking rates at the facility to discourage abuse that comes with the relatively cheap current rates.<\/p>\n

Pitkin County commissioners, however, balked Tuesday at the large proposed increases and asked the officials to \u201cget creative\u201d and find other solutions to the problem that don\u2019t include the price-gouging common to most parking facilities in the Upper Roaring Fork Valley.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think these prices are way out of line,\u201d Commissioner George Newman said. \u201cWe should not try to adjust our rates based on Aspen\u2019s (parking rates).\u201d<\/p>\n

The airport\u2019s short-term parking lot \u2014 which has 115 spaces \u2014 is currently free for the first hour and $2 an hour after that with a daily maximum of $12. The long-term lot \u2014 which has 155 spaces \u2014 is now free for the first hour and $1 an hour after that for a daily maximum of $6.<\/p>\n

Airport officials proposed raising the hourly fee in the short-term lot to between $3 and $6 an hour with a daily maximum of $21. For the long-term parking lot, they wanted to raise the rate to $4 an hour with a daily maximum of between $12 and $18, said Chris Padilla, the airport\u2019s controller.<\/p>\n

They also wanted to raise the lost-ticket fine from $75 to $150 and possibly more, he said. Finally, they proposed a maximum parking duration of 30 days for the short-term lot and 45 days for the long-term lot.<\/p>\n

The Pitkin Alert system \u2014 which texts and emails out community information \u2014 has been issuing numerous warnings lately about airport parking lots filling up. Padilla said skiers and others use the lots and jump on the free ski mountain shuttles from the airport while airport employees use them despite being provided free parking.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to decrease the convenience and change behavior,\u201d Padilla said.<\/p>\n

Prices for other area parking facilities are much higher, according to documents provided to commissioners.<\/p>\n

Parking in downtown Aspen is between $4 and $6 an hour with the first 15 minutes free. The Snowmass Village parking garage costs $5 an hour after the first hour, while the Aspen Highlands parking garage costs between $5 and $25 an hour depending on the amount of time you park and the day, according to the documents.<\/p>\n

Newman suggested implementing technology that can read electronic boarding passes, or perhaps requiring travelers to make copies of boarding passes and place them on their dashboards. Non-travelers who park there could then be fined $500 \u201cfor all I care,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would take care of that problem pretty quickly,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want parking for customers of the airport.\u201d<\/p>\n

Commissioner Patti Clapper said she thinks the short-term lot should actually be short-term, with a maximum parking duration of 15 days. But she also agreed with Newman about the large increases and said she\u2019d like to see other ideas.<\/p>\n

\u201cBring us back a more reasonable option,\u201d she said. \u201cThese are all significant increases.\u201d<\/p>\n

jauslander@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aspen airport officials want to significantly increase \u2014 and in some cases more than double \u2014 parking rates at the facility to discourage abuse that comes with the relatively cheap current rates. Pitkin County commissioners, however, balked Tuesday at the large proposed increases and asked the officials to \u201cget creative\u201d and find other solutions to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2444975","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-19 07:22:06","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2444975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444975\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2444975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2444975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2444975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}