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Minturn parking plan ends Wednesday

Dustin Racioppi
dracioppi@vaildaily.com
Minturn, CO Colorado

MINTURN, Colorado ” If you were just getting used to when and where you can park in Minturn, Colorado, you can stop.

The limited parking plan on Main, Pine, Taylor and Boulder streets will be lifted Wednesday until next winter.

For the most part, the plan ” which took effect on Nov. 1 and was designed to aid snow removal efforts ” has been successful with a few kinks that need to be worked out, the town says.



“I feel it worked really well for us. It made public works a lot more efficient,” said Rod Cordova, director of public works.

As the plan outlined, cars and trucks were prohibited from parking on the east side of the aforementioned streets on Mondays and Wednesdays. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, there was no parking on the east side. There were some portions that were limited to 2-hour parking, as well. Cordova said that helped his crew out a lot this winter.

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“We could definitely count on (plowing) a given side of the Main Street whatever days the sign had for no parking,” he said.

Jay Raiola, who owns two businesses on Main Street, met a couple times over the winter with other locals to discuss how the plan was working. The only fault she and others found in the plan was that cars weren’t allowed to be parked on the day’s prohibited side of the street after the snow was plowed. Aside from that, she was pretty pleased.

“We loved having the streets cleaned and at least we didn’t have cars piled up and buried in snow,” she said. “I think it worked well.”

On the enforcement side, Minturn officer Ryan Ware said dealing with complaints was rare and few tickets were written for illegally parked cars.

“We didn’t even have to write too many parking citations. I think everybody followed it pretty well,” Ware said. “There were a few complaints in the beginning. Shortly after, the complaints died down for the most part.”

Blueline Architects co-owner Ken Bridges said he wasn’t quite satisfied with how the plan worked, saying that sometimes the snow didn’t get plowed in a timely manner and the limits posed a problem for employees who had to park long-term.

“It worked out much better last year when there was no parking plan,” Bridges said. “I just haven’t seen a real benefit to it.”

Bridges said he understood throughout the winter that the public works crew was short-handed and that the parking plan was meant to benefit the public in the long run. He said if it comes back next winter, he’d like to see the plan massaged a little more.

“I still feel it hasn’t reached the level of benefit the town thought it would,” he said. “Maybe next year.”

Interim Town Administrator Gary Suiter said in an e-mail that the parking plan was a success overall, but there’s always room for improvement and the town will likely tweak the plan in the off-season.

Staff writer Dustin Racioppi can be reached at 970-748-2936 or dracioppi@vaildaily.com.


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