OK. All of you who suffer the “Aspen Traffic Malady” are going to get an immediate prescription for the cure. Many times in life, when you first taste the medicine, you won’t like the way it goes down. However, we will all feel so much better once Highway 82’s “Upper Respiratory Congestion” is relieved.

The first thing we need to accept is that every one of us responds to incentive. You do. I do. Everyone does. The simple truth is that we haven’t configured the proper incentives to solve the problem. We have the traffic equivalent of terminal cancer, and we act surprised when a Band-aid and an aspirin don’t work.

Most people I know don’t drive their cars into major cities (think NY or San Francisco) because a car is an expensive liability in those cities. That’s why many commuters take the train, the bus, or use a car pool. When you have a choice to pay the usurous tolls on the bridges and tunnels and the ridiculous cost of downtown parking, many prefer a public transportation alternative. Until we align our incentives in this manner, Valley residents will continue to choose the driving and traffic night mare.

Many of the ideas that rattle around the newspapers every day will not work. Do you like a 4-lane or a straight shot? All those will do is encourage more cars and trucks to drive into Aspen every day. When you make something easier, more people will do it. Remember what I said about incentives? We do not want to encourage more people to drive their cars. We want to make it more difficult! Besides, even if the proposed solutions helped more cars arrive in Aspen, it’s unclear to me exactly where they would park.

With this in mind, here is my 3-point plan to solve Aspen’s Traffic problem.

1. We all acknowledge that a great deal of the traffic is from construction vehicles. I would configure an immediate assessment on all construction projects in Pitkin County. This charge would be part and parcel of the building-permit process. We could do a calculation that a home of a certain size would require “so many construction trucks and vehicles.” Then I would assess each vehicle 50 to 100 dollars per day over the duration of construction. Someone building a 10000 square foot home would pay for twice as many vehicles as someone building a 5000 foot home. It’s fair that someone who builds a big house should pay in proportion to the impacts he created. Moreover, adding 50 thousand dollars to the cost of a monster home is, in relative terms, a spit in the bucket. Besides, new homeowners won’t want to come to Aspen if it’s a congested, polluted town, so they should be as anxious as everyone else to solve the problem.

2. I would use the funds from the “construction vehicle assessment” to make RFTA buses free for everyone. That’s right. Free! Over time, I would adjust the dollar value of the assessment to match the subsidy needed to maintain a Free RFTA. We would also make sure that there is always a dedicated, high-speed bus lane. While we are at it, we would also beef-up the Galena Street Shuttle schedule.

3. The cost of parking in Aspen is ridiculously low. Now that we have a FREE RFTA, we need to give people a real incentive to take the bus. You make not like this medicine, but I would change the parking meters to five dollars for the first hour and then charge ten dollars for each additional hour. When Valley residents can choose between taking a free bus, or spending 50 bucks on parking, our traffic congestion will subside.

I bet you will hear concerns from shopkeepers that more expensive parking will discourage tourists. That’s absurd. It costs hundreds of dollars for a tourist to stay in Aspen every day. The marginal cost of parking is almost irrelevant. In fact, once the local workers decide to avail themselves of the FREE bus services, downtown businesses may benefit from the easier access to Aspen and the greater number of parking spaces available for tourist-shoppers.

All we have to do is create the proper incentives. Our upper respiratory congestion will subside, our public transportation system will be enhanced, and most importantly, Aspen will remain a beautiful place to live and work. Are you prepared to swallow the medicine?