The Ketchum City Council needs to rein in its team before its
metered-parking stagecoach becomes a runaway.
The council agreed Monday night to pursue installation of downtown parking
meters to avoid being overwhelmed by cars.
Whoa, Ketchum!
Using metered parking alone to solve traffic woes will be like cinching up
a bucking strap on a short-tailed fly-bitten horse named Traffic Jam.
Ketchum needs to discourage parking, but it cannot and should not do so
before providing alternatives to driving. The city shouldn’t use the whip without
offering a few carrots and apples.
Free morning and evening bus service from park and ride lots between
Bellevue and Sun Valley is one alternative. Peripheral parking in city-owned lots on Warm
Springs Road combined with frequent shuttle bus service to downtown is another.
Ketchum could stop downtown traffic before it starts if it quit dawdling
on affordable housing. The city should quit making feeble excuses and get to work. People
living inside city boundaries could walk to work or ride the bus. Aspen, Park City, Vail
and Jackson have proven that affordable housing isn’t an impossible dream.
Metered parking alone will hurt businesses, all of which are having
difficulty attracting and keeping workers. It will hurt workers, too, because they will
feel the kick in the wallet.
Metered parking alone is like beating old Traffic Jam harder and more
often to make it a better horse. It doesn’t work and it’s guaranteed to make the
horse mad.
