January 2015

Area bus riders might be forgiven for being a little upset at the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority about the availability of parking spaces at the Carbondale Park & Ride lot, acknowledged the transit agency’s CEO Dan Blankenship recently.
But, he promised, things will improve in the spring or summer.
“We’re in the height of the busy season right now, and the lot’s overflowing,” said Blankenship in an interview in late December.
But RFTA planners had been working on a solution, including the purchase of a lot next to the Park & Ride at a cost of $425,000 and making plans to expand the parking lot, plans that he had hoped would come to fruition before the end of 2014.
But, he said, the agency got a nasty surprise when construction estimates for another Park & Ride expansion project in New Castle came in last fall at more than twice the $500,000 estimate.
At that point, he said, he and his board were worried that RFTA was at the mercy of contractors who already had plenty of work, and who were putting high-premium prices in their estimates for anyone trying to get more work out of them.

An ad-hoc group of Carbondale-area residents is hoping to convince a developer to build a new, “middle-income” senior housing center in the Carbondale area, as a way of helping senior citizens to stay in the Roaring Fork Valley rather than being forced to move away in their old age.
A development partner is talking with the group, but a representative told The Sopris Sun this week that the idea is too preliminary to be discussed in any detail, although a potential site is under contract and the company is starting to interview architects for the project.
The representative declined to comment for the record about the project or the development company that is considering it.
The group has been dubbed the “Senior Coalition to Determine and Address Senior Housing Needs in the Roaring Fork Valley,” although it is known simply as The Coalition among its advocates.