Newman: Solve traffic congestion — fill the empty seats

Last week’s thoughtful story by Aspen Journalism’s Laurine Lassalle reported that 2025 traffic into Aspen — combining Castle Creek Bridge and the Power Plant Road backdoor — finished about 5% below the 1993 benchmark our community set as a ceiling. That sounds like good news. It isn’t.

For one thing, as the article correctly noted, morning and afternoon peak traffic has “broadened”: The gridlock once confined to a sharp commuter hour now spreads across more of the day. For another, in peak season, the Power Plant Road “sneak” now carries up to 34% of afternoon outbound traffic squeezing through the West End to escape Main Street, creating unlivable traffic jams on Smuggler Street. The 1993 ceiling was set on Castle Creek Bridge alone. The peak season picture today is considerably worse than traffic counts alone suggest.

That’s why, last year, the Roaring Fork Transportation Coalition — 28 valley residents, current and former elected officials, employers and commuters working with professional transportation engineers from Fehr & Peers — did a deep dive into what would actually work. Our Initial Findings & Next Steps report is now public, and we’d like to highlight one of its most surprising conclusions.

Last summer, the coalition commissioned its own count — not just of vehicles but of empty seats. On a typical peak-season day, more than 34,000 empty seats roll into Aspen. The capacity to move our commuters faster, more affordably and with far less stress already exists, on the road, every morning. We just aren’t using it.

The math is striking: If just 7% of those empty seats — about one in every 14 — were filled by drivers willing to rideshare with a neighbor, we’d take 2,500 cars off Highway 82 each morning and effectively resolve our chronic traffic jams on Highway 82, Cemetery Lane and the West End. One seat in 14.

Doing this at scale requires two tools our valley needs: an easy, friendly, safe ride-sharing app tailored to our commuters and an incentive pricing system to make it work. Such systems already move millions of users in other parts of the world. A valley-wide app here could quietly do what no road project ever could: pair drivers and passengers headed to the same places at the same times, automatically and at low cost.

RFTA, the nation’s most successful rural bus system, will remain essential to any solution. But as CEO Kurt Ravenschlag has noted, RFTA alone can’t be expected to absorb the entire congestion problem. RFTA’s budget couldn’t support valley-wide free fares. And even with current free fares from Brush Creek, the 400-space park-and-ride lot there averages just 268 cars at midday.

Why doesn’t it fill up? Partly because “free” by itself isn’t enough. Habits sometimes need a gentle nudge, and one transit mode doesn’t fit all people. Ride-sharing complements traditional transit by offering an easy alternative some riders find more convenient — and even enjoyable (20 million people rideshare regularly in France, including 60% of 18-to-35-year-olds). And this new “transit fleet” already exists. Your car is part of it.

There’s a near-term opportunity to pilot some of this. Aspen is currently studying West End traffic mitigation. As an experiment, the city could require three-person carpools through the West End and Power Plant Road during the 3–6 p.m. peak. Even without an incentive pricing component, this plan might fill empty seats, reduce West End traffic and demonstrate an innovative approach to congestion reduction. It’s also reversible, measurable and inexpensive to try.

The ripple benefits of congestion reduction extend far beyond Aspen. Lassalle’s article accurately noted that Grand Avenue traffic through Glenwood Springs hit a record 27,700 vehicles per day in 2025. Part of this is commuters bound for the upper valley. Fewer upvalley solo drivers would mean a less-clogged Glenwood, faster RFTA valley buses and lower emissions all along the corridor.

The coalition’s full plan includes complementary measures that reinforce each other — roadway improvements, enhanced transit, ridesharing and a phased incentive-pricing system. But filling empty seats is the most immediate lever available to us. It requires no decades of debate, no fleet of new buses, no major new infrastructure.

The most powerful tool we have against chronic congestion is already on Highway 82 every morning. It’s the seat next to you.

Roaring Fork Transportation Coalition Steering Committee (Co-chairs: Hannah Berman and Susan Marolt / Members: John Bennett, Michael Kinsley, Michael Miracle, Diane Moore, George Newman, John Sarpa and Emily Williams)