Letter (Sunday, Aug. 11): A childish, short-sighted column
A childish, short-sighted column
Dear Editor:
Regarding Doug Allen’s column Aug. 8 in the Aspen Daily News, it never ceases to amaze me that one can have a perfectly logical solution to a problem — but there always seems to be someone who is stuck in the status quo who can’t understand the importance of changing with the times.
Doug Allen, you can’t have a recorded 18,000 people in a small town of 6,000 permanent residents and not find them a place to park! Eighteen-thousand cars will not fit in the Rio Grande parking garage and creating an additional parking garage will reduce, not increase, the street congestion. That’s a no-brainer!
It’s a shame you think you are required to respond with sarcasm and vitriol to a perfectly logical solution to a real problem. If you think the people who live in the lodging core are going to park at Rio Grande and carry their groceries five blocks up a hill, you are the one who is deluded. Common sense assures us that if there were a convenient place to park, people would park and not be subjected to driving in circles to find a place for their vehicle.
Doug Allen states that people will oppose the project because “making it easier for people to crowd the streets with vehicles, speeding down streets and ignoring traffic signs and signals is contrary to what they stand for.” Mr. Allen, perhaps the injury to your head to which you referred has impaired your ability to think logically. You make no sense. What you describe is the current problem we are living with. You don’t have to be a genius to realize having underground parking beneath Wagner would reduce the crowded congestion on the streets and reduce the air and noise pollution and reduce the steady flow of traffic in the lodging core!
It is foolish for you to say a parking garage beneath Wagner Park is a stupid idea — considering I met with the Commercial Lodging Core Commission last week, who voted almost unanimously in favor of the city creating a parking garage beneath Wagner Park.
Business members were wildly enthusiastic about my efforts to resurrect this solution after its being considered for the past 50 years.
These members of the commission have the intelligence to realize we can provide solutions to problems which are giving Aspen a bad reputation for not being able to park. If you read the newspapers, you know there were 18,000 people in town two weeks ago.
As for the childish behavior of calling names such as narcissism, can you not comprehend that this city improvement would benefit all the residents and visitors to Aspen? This effort is not predicated on a selfish, self-serving request, although I admit that I am not going to carry groceries five blocks up a hill to the lodging core, and neither is anyone else. Aspen is very special, but it’s not so special that visitors will continue to come if they can’t park their car someplace reasonably convenient.
By the way, anyone who knows me will attest to the fact that I am an honest person, so curb your tongue in that regard.
After reading your column, a friend suggested to me that your entire column should be discounted because of your self-reported head injury. I send my sincere wishes for a speedy recovery to your injured head, for I fear you have temporarily lost your power of reason.
Susan O’Neal
Aspen
