The Aspen Institute was asked by Aspen area citizens and elected leaders to apply Aspen Institute methodologies to issues of transportation and mobility facing Aspen and the Roaring Fork Valley. After several discussions with community members, it was decided that the Aspen Institute would apply a hybrid approach and host a series of public talks featuring world-class experts on the issues of traffic, transportation and mobility. In tandem with these public talks, the Task Force, made up of community members with diverse viewpoints, would meet with these experts to determine how we as a community could apply some of the ideas presented by the experts in the upper Roaring Fork Valley.
The overall objective of the task force was to develop an overall vision of where the upper valley should be in 20 years – in 2035, with respect to transportation and mobility in the Valley – focusing on quality of life, environmental sustainability, air quality, and social equity.
This work focused on high level, visionary, policy-oriented discussions. The task force did not debate the technical specifics of executing various plans, nor would it move to execute the recommendations.
Since 1995, the Aspen Institute Community Forum has worked effectively to identify emerging issues and existing trends that have the potential to affect the long-term economic, social, and environmental well-being of the Roaring Fork Valley, and to recommend policies and solutions that address those issues and trends. The Community Forum has sponsored task forces on such topics as healthcare, communications and technology, affordable housing, the Pitkin County Home Rule Charter, youth, and economic sustainability. It also sponsored an initiative to improve election-campaign civility.
The Aspen Institute was the neutral convener for this project, and served to facilitate the dialogue and the work that the members of the community completed.
The Institute provided the task force members with a neutral setting where they could discuss these ideas without attribution by the media.
Sponsors of the Aspen Institute Community Forum on Transportation and Mobility include the City of Aspen, Pitkin County, the Town of Snowmass Village, and private donors.
