Goldfarb: The optimist — building resilience
Aspen resident
Courtesy photo
Aspen would have been an impregnable winter fortress for a medieval king. The impenetrable snows of Independence Pass on one side, high mountains on two others, and an exceptional natural moat called Castle Creek at its entry.
In modern times, these same characteristics make Aspen both special and vulnerable. The natural barriers of high mountains and river gorges are a source of beauty and adventure. The same geographic isolation and barriers make us vulnerable in a highly-interconnected world.
COVID reflected the two sides of this coin. The beauty and isolation exerted a magnetic pull on anyone who could get here. But without our interconnected world — fresh food, power grids, vaccine deliveries — we would have quickly devolved into a state of nature. This paradox shapes our reality as a community: How do we maintain a measure of isolation while building resilience in an interconnected world?
In Aspen, our physical vulnerabilities are transportation access, electricity and natural gas supply, and fire risk. We have seen tests of each vulnerability in the past few years — both in this valley and in similar communities. On transportation, in the past six months, we have seen Gunnison, Colorado, and Jackson, Wyoming, suffer catastrophic bridge or road failures that have isolated each community. On electric power, we saw the Basalt fire threaten the only high-capacity power lines into the valley. Had those lines burned, who knows how long it would have taken to restore power — many months? A year? On wildfire risk, we saw the tragedies of Paradise, California, and the Marshall Fire near Boulder.
These reminders show the vulnerabilities that come with the isolation of mountain towns and their proximity to wild places in a hotter world.
Aspen is more vulnerable than these communities because we are more isolated. Yet, as a community, we struggle to make decisions that build resilience. We endlessly debate whether a decaying bridge should go in one location or a location 200 meters away.
In the meantime, all of us drive the bridge each day wondering if today will be the day we become Gunnison. Since the bridge is never empty, we wonder if today will be the day we lose lives. Or whether today will be the day that CDOT declares the bridge unsafe and shuts down access.
Since 1998, we have debated how many angels can dance on the head of a pin when it comes to the Castle Creek Bridge. We approved a solution that year and then spent more than a quarter century not implementing it.
Recently, we explored the reasonable idea of rebuilding the current bridge but learned we would be required to undertake a multi-year environmental review. With the clock ticking toward midnight on our decaying infrastructure, we have trapped ourselves in a box. Each day that passes, we risk lives and the livelihood of upper valley. If the bridge collapses or shuts down, everyone will point fingers at each other — at current leaders, past leaders, local NIMBYs (not in my backyard). No one will be accountable, but everyone will pay the price.
It is time to reframe our community’s approach to infrastructure and resilience. The question should be: How much can we invest to protect this community in an interconnected world? Wherever we have a single point of failure, like the bridge or power lines, we should ask what we can do to build redundancy.
The question shouldn’t be whether we replace our single-access route with a new single-access route. The question should be how we fund the creation of two access routes to make sure emergency teams can get into Aspen, while our residents and visitors can get out of Aspen in the case of fire or other emergency.
Resilience is insurance. Insurance is cheap when bought early and very expensive when bought late. Where this community was once early and decisive on initiatives, like affordable housing, we have since developed the habit of waiting until the last minute to buy insurance.
While it is unfortunate that we are late, we do have substantial resources in Aspen and Pitkin County. The City and Pitkin County each had 2023 budgets of just under $200 million, totaling about $400 million. More of this budget could go to building resilience for our community. When coupled with state and federal funds, we have unique capability to invest in resilience for our transportation and electric grid and to protect against fire.
Resilience is not sexy. It’s very boring. NIMBY issues arise whenever it comes to the location of a bridge or power line. Elected officials with the incentive of short-term election cycles believe they are not rewarded for making hard decisions around resilience. In fact, it’s often a visible headache to build resilience. No one likes construction on a bridge or airport. But voters are smart and have longer sight than they are commonly credited for having.
It is time to reframe the conversation from debating how we achieve the perfect solution, when none exists, to explaining that we are building resilience to protect the lives and livelihood of the community. Everyone benefits from resilience, but no one can see it or touch it like you can a park or new trail.
Whether a leader wins or loses the next election, 20 or 50 years from now, the leaders who act to future-proof our community will be the ones remembered for their courage.
Greg Goldfarb lives in Aspen.
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