Affordable housing is not the way to go, especially if its just buying up existing units instead of constructing new ones. It never solves the problem because the demand for it will always be much higher than the supply; a few lucky people are going to win a lottery while the overall problem of market prices remains and would be better solved by other means. We'd be better off allowing 10 story market rate condos or investing in better roads.

It makes sense in resort towns like Jackson Hole where you need to retain critical members of the community like hospital employees and the resort/restaurant workforce. This ain't jackson hole.

Furthermore, the only time affordable housing even makes theoretical sense to me is when we're talking about someone who has been a hard-working member of the community for years and suddenly is getting priced out (especially if they have kids), but will this program have any safeguards against affordable housing going to someone who just moved to Colorado a year ago? That would seem like a misuse of the program-we shouldn't be subsidizing relocation to one of the most desirable places to live in the country, because people are gonna come anyways.

Widen this highway already. We live in a freaking third world country. I feel like at least a third of the time I drive up there to visit family around rush hour, I get stopped by an accident on the 2 lane section that starts right around CO66. 2 lanes worked in 1970, not so much now.

It ultimately doesn't matter whether it's natural or man-made. To return to the atmospheric CO2 levels that climate scientists say we need, we'd literally destroy our economy. And I don't mean an oil executive can't buy a home in Jackson Hole (when they suck at skiing anyway and should just go to the beach) but that your life will change dramatically. Little feel-good changes in your lifestyle won't help. We can't do any of this quick enough. We're gonna learn to adapt. Hopefully all the hype about all the ski resorts melting out isn't actually true and it's just standard boom/bust snow cycles, but we can't do much to change it at this point even if it is true.

Renewable energy, distribution of that energy, and electric cars will eventually be important for our future so we have an option for when we run out of farm fields to frack for gas, easily accessible coal, and oil sands to turn into awesome gasoline. Development is important, and subsidies aren't necessarily a bad thing, but to speed it up to the level that's apparently necessary to change anything is just not feasible. Let's spend that money on roads and, less importantly, a few light rail projects in areas where they'll actually make sense.

After the last snowmelt, the main Chautauqua trail was at least 30 feet wide of mud up to the ski jump trail and maybe more, although I hope at least a little of the grass on the edge will have survived the trampling and erosion. And anyone who isn't a jerk went straight through all that mud.

Apparently they're putting fences in on each side of the trail, and while it's a shame that we need that, we definitely need that. I hope the same trail project puts in adequate drainage too. The trails will always be muddy after snowmelt and rain, but there need to be waterbars and ditches to divert water off these heavily used trails so the runoff isn't following the trail the whole way down like a stream.

hahaha my god

We should absolutely have taller buildings in certain areas. No, we shouldn't put a huge building right in front of a park or a bunch of single-family homes if it's going to block their views. But the buildings at 30th and Pearl only block your views if you're waiting for a traffic light to change; I just don't get how people can get that worked up about views in most of these cases. I don't need to stare at the Flatirons when I'm driving down 30th.

Congestion is a much bigger issue, and city leaders have deliberately avoided expanding roads and intersections when they had the chance over the past 20 years. At a certain level of density, there's nothing you can do to avoid congestion, but this city and many others across the front range have done a terrible job upgrading infrastructure along with growth, and we need to make an effort. However, I fear there's honestly not a lot we can do because no one wants to raise taxes to pay for roads and even if we as a city, county, state, or nation did raise taxes to be used specifically for roads, I guarantee politicians would divert the discretionary funds that currently go to roads for other purposes.

In sum, let's widen I-70 through the mountains, widen I-25 above firestone, get all those stupid traffic lights off diagonal highway and widen that, and then widen CO-93 and put in some snow fences. Growth is coming whether it's in Boulder or Erie or Candelas. However the Boulder development debate turns out, let's stop trying to pretend that it's reasonable policy to force 2015 commuters to drive on roads built for 60's/70's/80's/90's traffic levels. We're still gonna drive, we'll just be a lot more miserable and less safe.

Yeah, other people's taxes. The Fourmile Canyon Fire cost 14 million to extinguish and the state/feds had to bail out all the local fire protection districts and pay to import more firefighters from elsewhere. That's roughly the same as Boulder FD's yearly fire protection budget. Yet Boulder's FD protects over 100,000 people. We're talking a few hundred for fourmile canyon. They would have spent some money even if the houses weren't there, but really the only reason we put so much effort into suppression is to protect structures.

I'm personally pretty glad that a president "misused the act" to create Grand Teton National Park. That would not have passed congress, but people will cherish that decision as long as our country exists.

I vaguely remember reading about OHV conflicts and I know it's a big rafting area, but I'm not hugely familiar with what activities specifically go on there or how much use the area gets. So maybe the land was already stable/not deteriorating and there were no ill effects from overuse or unmanaged use, and you can attest to that. However, there are a lot of recreational lands that are just being trashed, so there's nothing inherently wrong with limiting access to user groups that cause disproportionate impacts. Public land doesn't mean you get to do whatever you want.

"But in and around the Front Range, the mentality is often that if the state simply sent more money, more air tankers, and more firefighters, fires could be stopped."

Maybe we could ask that the relatively limited number of WUI-dwelling Coloradans who require this huge expensive firefighting apparatus pay their fair share to protect their own property.

The biggest issue with this is that a hunter doesn't want a scraggly bear that lives just outside of town and has become habituated to humans, garbage, and urban food sources. A hunter wants to find the biggest, healthiest, wildest bear they can so they have an awesome trophy.