Well, it’s officially summer; also known as construction
season here in Colorado, and we are finally addressing the issue of traffic on
Highway 133. Hooray! It’s great to see CDOT and the Town of Carbondale and RFTA
all working together for the betterment of our little mountain town. A
roundabout big enough for fracking trucks, a turning lane for businesses on the
Upper East Side, and 71 additional parking spaces at the Carbondale Park &
Ride; looks like Carbondale’s ‘movin on up’ just like the Jeffersons.
The only problem is that pesky intersection at Highway 133 and
Dolores Way. If it was just the entrance to Satank, and no one else really used
it, I would understand the blatant blind eye. But we’re also talking about Carbondale
Community School parents and teachers, Business Park employees and customers,
CRMS faculty and students, and now any and all Kissing Commuters (people who
drop off their loved ones with a kiss and a wave.) Carbondale P&Z gave the
go-ahead to RFTA last Thursday after discussing landscaping at length and snow
removal to handle Minnesota’s standards. The fact that RFTA’s dumping more
traffic onto an already deadly congested Dolores Way went over like a fart in
RVR, i.e., everyone avoided eye contact until the subject changed. (They voted
while Charlie Kees was out of the room and Rich Camp was out of town.)
There are some residents who would like to see the entrance
to our town gussied up, as they say. I am not one of them. I am more of the
Brad Hendricks school of thought: the worse it looks, the longer we’ll be able
to hang on to the see-saw that is a real town vs. a cute little destination
where people in white jeans come to eat and shop.
Highway 133 has the ability to protect our town. As long as
it scares people off and they head up the valley in search of greener polo
pastures, we may be able to hold on to our unique community for a little bit
longer. The beautification of the stretch of Highway 133 from the bridge to RVR
reminds me of those parkways you see in West Africa leading from the airport to
the fancy hotel; trees and flowers and smooth pavement which ends abruptly on
the next block over where little kids are kicking a soccer ball in the dirt amid
the trash.
In the not-too-distant past, local politics have also
resembled the corruption and hubris often found in developing countries. An
example of this is the sculpture by James Surls planned for the center of the
new roundabout. Personally, I have nothing against James Surls or his artwork.
I’ve actually been in a kiva with the man and I think he, like the rest of us,
is just playing the hand he was dealt as well as he can. But the process for
this particular sculpture was about as rigged as they come. What’s the old
saying? Art is in the eye of the person buying said art.
Carbondale does not need Houston’s sloppy seconds in its
gateway or anywhere else. Besides:
1. Ask someone who has lived here for more than ten years if
they know of James Surls and you will probably hear this answer, “Who? Oh yeah,
I think he works at Junction Pipe.”
2. The roundabout is already decorated with Mt Sopris, (or
as the Utes call it— Big Mountain by Two Rivers, because they don’t have the
white-man hang-up where we have to name everything after ourselves for posterity.)
And 3. $200,000 would buy a hell of a lot of art supplies
for the local kids who will have to play real-life Frogger whenever they’re trying
to get to 7/Eleven for a Slurpee.
Let’s blame it on Mercury in retrograde, or the fact that shit
rolls downhill and Aspen’s like a Willy Wonka factory when it comes to poop…
whatever the case, it’s not too late to showcase our true colors, and let the
roundabout just be about the traffic. As we all know, Carbondale is a great
place to be! (Once you actually get here.) And I, for one, would like to keep
it that way.
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