It’s an only-in-Colorado kind of story. Where else do people freak about whether Big Brother is watching them … on the ski slopes?
Radio frequency identity (RFID) chips embedded in season ski passes allow snow riders to effortlessly glide through…
VAIL — We all know who wins when an SUV loaded with skiers tangles with a tractor trailer out on the open road on an icy winter day in the Rocky Mountains. The resulting carnage sometimes shuts down high-country highways for hours at a time. There are only losers in such a scenario. But who wins politically in the battle for supremacy between skier traffic and the state’s trucking industry?
Government officials from Vail to the Front Range foothills agree it will take an Olympian effort to fix winter weekend skier traffic snarls and summer tourism gridlock on Interstate 70 between Denver and Colorado’s most popular mountain resorts. But with a price tag of $9 billion for high-speed rail from Denver to Vail, some observers say it will literally take the Winter Olympics coming to Colorado to secure the federal and state funds needed to make the rail solution a reality.
In the current dismal economic climate there are no big-picture transportation-funding fixes for Colorado’s crumbling system of roads and bridges, no high-speed transit solution right around the corner. Just zipper lanes and slow-moving traffic penalties for left-lane lollygaggers.
Mexican tourism and immigration have long been powerful economic drivers in the resort counties former U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis used to represent in Congress. Now some Western Slope residents are worried gubernatorial candidate McInnis will destroy that dynamic.
An international visa program that for years has allowed ski instructors and other resort workers from Australia, New Zealand, South America and Europe to work at Colorado ski areas just took another major hit – this time from an unlikely…
Colorado-based ski industry leader Vail Resorts is the state’s top purchaser of renewable-energy credits (RECs), according to a recent report released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the company ranks 25th in the nation.
Can Colorado’s ski industry, which markets to millionaires who jet in on fuel-guzzling Gulfstreams, inhabit 10,000-square-foot starter castles two weeks a year, ski on artificial snow and walk on snow-melted streets, in any way lay claim to being a green leader?
Gov. Bill Ritter’s comment Thursday that Colorado’s ski and hospitality industries are being hurt by tougher state immigration laws adopted in 2006 is only partly true.
Nero may have fiddled while Rome raged in flames, but the fur-clad folks who frequent tony winter retreats such as Vail and Aspen apparently prefer to ski while the nation plunges into the depths of economic despair.
Those who for decades complained bitterly about the ever-escalating price of a ski-lift ticket (both Vail and Aspen charge about a C note these days) never stopped to think about the relative cost compared to the other posh pursuits of the not-so-idle rich.
Do you know where to vote on Election Day? Do you know what to bring with you? Get comprehensive voter information for your state here.
rss