Perspective: on the Arts Fest, parking, tourism numbers…and grandkids

First, welcome back to Elk Avenue, Crested Butte Arts Festival. It sure feels like that is where it belongs. The school site might have had some logistical advantages, but it could have been any other tented event in a school parking lot in any other mountain town. The artists seemed to understand that as fewer applied to be part of the early August extravaganza after the location shift. A slight change in locale put it all into a better perspective. Having the artists on Elk Ave. makes it special and different. It feels right for CB. We’ll see how the new layout works but coming back to Elk Avenue and not charging even a miniscule entrance fee is the right move. Easy logistics will always take a backseat to how people feel.

Conspiracy theory alert! People feel a little uneasy with the black helicopters buzzing around the valley this week. They are not here to scan your brain or begin the high mountain control project. They are doing geologic imaging in historic mining areas and that includes CB.

After last week’s editorial where I mentioned the frustration of Crested Butte’s parking policy, I got a message from someone in town pointing out that there were plenty of spaces available that afternoon at the Four-way parking lot. It made me consider that we were viewing the parking issue in Crested Butte from two different perspectives, both valid and constructive. 

My view has been focused on people’s personal experience instead of on an analytical spreadsheet perspective looking at the number of spaces in all the public lots. I see it as people with ‘vacation brain’ trying to navigate a new place they are not familiar with. 

A visitor is likely to follow Google maps to the Public House or Marchitelli’s or the Nickel and look for a place to park. Not finding one, they probably will circle the block and then dad will stop in the middle of the street and drop off the mom, grandma and three little kids and go look for a nearby spot. He will likely circle the nearby two-block area because to him anything beyond two blocks seems pretty far. The driver might see open parking spots, but the curb is either red, yellow or blue. The neighborhood parking permit warnings combined with winter parking regulation signs are too confusing to the Tulsa guy. Add in cones, flower boxes, flags on stop signs and a crusty local yelling at them to “slow the f down!” and I understand why their eyes might be rolling in two different directions. 

A CB friend said when they went to San Diego over spring break, they faced the same dilemma going to the beach. About halfway through the vacation they turned on their ‘local brain’ and purposely drove two blocks from the main area. There they found an easy parking spot where they unloaded the kids and the gear and walked the two blocks to the beach with the teenagers. They expected to get a ticket or at least sneered at. They didn’t get either.

Here’s an idea that might be too tourist oriented…consider designating a couple spots on the north side of Elk across from the Talk as a downtown drop-off spot. Put up a sign (Lord knows CB needs more signs) making it clear that dad or mom can drop off the kids and grandma right in the middle of the town’s small commercial district. Explain clearly that there is free parking behind them down the street at the Four-way and it is only an eight-minute walk back to Third and Elk. Heck, hire the bike chariot to shuttle drivers the three-and-a-half blocks between 5 and 7 p.m. and make it easy on the people who are trying to do the right thing.

Mathematical equations and spreadsheets can be thrown out the window when it comes to human behavior but the two can be melded to reach productive solutions.

A weekend trip to the Park City/Salt Lake City area reinforced how lucky we are to be at the end of the road. While some people here are losing their minds over the number of people in the valley and their impact this summer, it really doesn’t compare in terms of sheer numbers to most other resort destinations. From our perspective it can feel overwhelming in July, and there is no doubt it is at times given our size and infrastructure. The fact is people in general are attracted to nice places. In the Park City area, the number of tourists and amount of construction and traffic and everything else in that nice place dwarfs what we experience on the worst of days. 

I will again contend we are ahead of the game by proactively dealing with the impacts of our increased tourism numbers. While certainly at times overwhelming, we seem to be in a much better situation than a lot of other places. And while the tidal wave here lasts maybe five weeks, there it seems to last most of the year.

The reason Diane and I were in Utah was to welcome our twin granddaughters to the world. That too provided some perspective. While I think many of the world’s issues can be attributed simply to the number of humans in the world, that analytical equation can be thrown out the window when parents (or grandparents) see the little miracles up close. It is an amazingly sweet experience. Given that, people aren’t going to stop having more people anytime soon. Having kids is a sign of optimism. The hope is that some of these new humans can figure out how to make all the issues work out. 

Frankly, meeting two new, tiny, beautiful humans puts the CB parking, tourism numbers and Arts Fest issues into perspective. Those issues are real and certainly deserve to be addressed but geez, keep it all in perspective. We all want a bright future…but it’s all pretty good here. 

—Mark Reaman