Meredith Carroll: Aspen traffic-study results are in
Muck Off
Just over a week ago, the Aspen City Council approved an in-depth, nearly $500,000 study on Aspen’s enduring traffic woes. However, what has emerged since then are people clamoring for more immediate results than the transportation consultant hired can provide. That’s why I stepped up and conducted my own entirely official, officially scientific survey of local driving patterns, the findings of which are as follows:
• Everybody in a Ferrari, Lamborghini or bright-yellow or cherry-red vehicle is entitled in perpetuity to ignore all traffic laws, including but not limited to: speed limits, having more than a single passenger on board while using the high-occupancy-vehicle lane, yielding to the vehicle on the left in the roundabout, and not acting like an asshole. (Not acting like an asshole isn’t an official traffic law; however, being one is officially required of anyone who drives a vehicle that’s lower to the ground than a Matchbox car.)
• There is a direct correlation between Thule cargo carriers, Subaru Outbacks and yellow Labrador retrievers. No one knows exactly what the correlation is, but it exists.
• Seven out of 13 drivers heading into Aspen drink coffee from reusable cups. Two of them swim directly to Colombia each morning to get their coffee straight from the source because they care more about the environment than you. One drinks matcha tea lattes made with a mixture of cockroach milk and the tears of vegan organic fairies (who are paid fair wages, so it’s OK). The other three drive pickup trucks and indicated with a single finger that they declined to reveal what or how they drink.
• Four out of seven drivers know for a fact the woman trying to merge in front of them at the Buttermilk light doesn’t deserve to go first, which is why they have a sworn duty to ensure that bitch stays behind them, right where she belongs.
• One hundred percent of people who drive hybrid cars are better human beings than all other human beings. Just ask them.
• All 42 of the motorcyclists driving six deep across two lanes get 84 percent of their jollies each day by not letting you get past them. It’s just you they won’t let pass, by the way. They really don’t like you, specifically.
• Fourteen out of 19 drivers think the person in front of them, who happens to be their neighbor, Kyle, could have ridden his bicycle to work because they’re almost positive Kyle won’t need his car to do anything else of note later on that day.
• One out of three Vespa riders wishes they’d gone skinny-dipping that one time when they spent a summer in college in upstate New York.
• Ninety-two percent of drivers secretly think Toni Kronberg’s crazy gondola plan doesn’t sound nearly as crazy anymore.
• Charlie Tarver really never, ever wears a helmet when riding a bike.
• Mick Ireland really always wears a helmet, even when he’s not riding a bike.
• Ireland also really always wears bicycle gear, even when he’s not riding a bike.
• Three out of five sheriff’s deputies who drive the speed limit in the right lane are mentally daring the drivers in the left lane to pass them.
• Eighty-seven percent of people with “Namaste” or “Coexist” bumper stickers have the worst case of road rage 126 percent of the time.
• Drivers with Texas license plates are the worst. Literally, the worst.
• Everyone who commutes to Aspen in the morning thinks everything would have been better if they’d only left three minutes earlier or seven minutes later.
• Everyone who knows for a fact that McLain Flats is always the better route into town immediately regrets the decision as soon as they get to the light at Cemetery Lane.
• No one thinks the S-curves are actually in the shape of an S.
• Everyone wonders how someone managed to cram so many tulip bulbs alongside so many daffodil bulbs in that island at the S-curves when the planting instructions for each specifically say to space them at least 3 to 6 inches apart.
• Sixty-three percent of drivers leave their wallets and keys on the passenger seat when they arrive at their destination but will lock up their bicycles in a manner that wows security officials at Fort Knox.
• Anyone with a pulse figures that 5 out of 5 City Council members live east of the roundabout, because if they didn’t, they’d know it was entirely unnecessary to spend nearly $500,000 to learn that traffic into and out of Aspen sucks and that the solution to the problem has absolutely nothing to do with cars.
More at http://www.meredithcarroll.com.
