{"id":2453300,"date":"2020-01-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-16T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=319205"},"modified":"2020-01-16T15:06:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-16T22:06:00","slug":"aspen-can-learn-from-past-mistake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/aspen-can-learn-from-past-mistake\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspen can learn from past mistake"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

When the former Federal Aviation Administration general counsel spoke in Aspen on federal preemption last March, under which doctrine local governments cannot regulate air traffic, he stated that the FAA\u2019s preemptive authority ends at the perimeter of the \u201cair side,\u201d so that a local government is free, for example, to limit the number of airport terminal gates if it so chooses.<\/p>\n

Some of those involved in the Aspen\/Pitkin County Airport\u2019s vision process then seized on the concept of restricting the number of gates below the current number of seven (with space for eight) to \u201cprevent unrestricted growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Airport Experience Working Group, however, after detailed expert presentation and discussion of the issue, recommended that there be \u201ceight gates, with planned expansion as-needed in the design.\u201d This recommendation was based on expert advice that \u201cwe don\u2019t know how the carriers would respond\u201d to such a restriction other than it would lengthen peak airport travel periods, seriously overburdening airport staff and negatively impacting traveler experience and, potentially, safety.<\/p>\n

Bad ideas sometimes die hard, however, and the notion of limiting the number of gates in the new terminal keeps cropping up. The Aspen\/Pitkin County Vision Committee should be wary of \u201cgate control.\u201d There has been no authoritative suggestion that gate control would \u201cthrottle growth\u201d or reduce airport pollution and noise, and no evidence that it has worked anywhere else. None.<\/p>\n

When Ed Holden built his lixiviation plant in 1891 on the west end of Aspen, that left no room for a straight in across Castle Creek to Main Street, so the bridge was built on the alignment of a side street, Hallam. Hence the accidental bottleneck called the entrance to Aspen. It would be a shame if in the process of re-imagining Sardy Field we created another well intended, but ill-conceived and ultimately self-defeating upper valley transportation bottleneck.<\/p>\n

Barry Vaughan<\/p>\n

El Jebel<\/p>\n

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

When the former Federal Aviation Administration general counsel spoke in Aspen on federal preemption last March, under which doctrine local governments cannot regulate air traffic, he stated that the FAA\u2019s preemptive authority ends at the perimeter of the \u201cair side,\u201d so that a local government is free, for example, to limit the number of airport […]<\/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":["post-2453300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 20:39:56","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\/2453300","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=2453300"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2453333,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453300\/revisions\/2453333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2453300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2453300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2453300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}