Upvalley officials are taking a closer look at Brush Creek Park and Ride management, with a recent report indicating that Pitkin County could assume management control and strengthen some parking restrictions — like prohibiting parking overnight.
The Elected Officials Transportation Committee will discuss a monitoring and management plan for the parking and multimodal transit area at their May 15 meeting. The EOTC is an advisory committee of representatives of the city of Aspen, town of Snowmass Village and Pitkin County.
The Brush Creek Park and Ride Monitoring and Management Plan report was authored by EOTC member staff and consultant DJ&A, which will be available to the public as part of the next EOTC meeting packet.
The Colorado Department of Transportation owns the 27-acre space at the intersection of Brush Creek Road and Highway 82. CDOT leases its use as a free commuter lot to the EOTC, city of Aspen and the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority through an intergovernmental agreement.
It has about 400 paved parking spaces with unpaved space for parking overflow utilized mostly during special events. Six RFTA routes and one seasonal Snowmass Village Shuttle run through Brush Creek.
The city of Aspen oversees parking and enforcement at Brush Creek with trash and snow removal contracts, a carpool permit system that averages 180 permits daily, nightly lot monitoring and more.
There is a 24-hour limit on parking at Brush Creek and overnight parking within that limit is permitted. The report makes a case to no longer allow overnight parking for public safety reasons.
According to the report, the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office has responded to more than 850 calls regarding Brush Creek since 2022. The two most common complaints are “suspicious behavior” with 315 calls and “suspicious people sleeping in vehicles” with 126 calls. The report did not define “suspicious.”
“Staff have observed such alarming behavior as vehicles sharing electricity via jumper cables with generators and gasoline cans nearby, makeshift campers with piles of garbage amassed and people relieving themselves at the edges of the lot,” the report states on anecdotal evidence of public safety threats.
The consultants analyzed three similar lots managed by the Teton Village Association in Wyoming, Steamboat Springs Transit and Utah Transit Authority. From the review, the report recommended camera installation (CCTV or a more sophisticated AI model with license plate reader technology), prohibiting overnight parking and conducting daily parking counts.
In its recommendations, the report says Pitkin County would be a more effective manager of Brush Creek, in part due to the location of the county’s public works operations center, just south of the site, allowing for more efficient observation and maintenance activities.
“Consolidating management responsibilities under a single agency can help streamline management and make the process more efficient,” the report states. “Should the EOTC be supportive of consolidating management responsibilities, Pitkin County would be best suited for this role given the location of the park and ride.”
The report recommends streamlining the special events permit process for the overflow lots and investing in better wayfinding signage.
A county-administered online Brush Creek user survey garnered 143 respondents, 119 in English and 24 in Spanish.
Most respondents typically use Brush Creek in the morning, from 5 a.m. to 11 a.m. If not for holidays or special events, write-in responses show that respondents use the lot for accessing ski areas and getting to work. The respondents mostly came from midvalley, the Basalt and Carbondale areas — though 31 of 129 said they came from Aspen.
Among the top priorities for respondents were a direct route to Aspen Highlands Ski Resort and a better layout for pedestrian drop-offs.
Buses that run during rush hour are often full, with buses driving past stops. Whether or not that’s a problem Brush Creek management can solve is not clear, but passengers expressed frustration with the capacity issues in their responses.
“It is so demoralizing when you’re trying to go to work, and the bus driver won’t pick you up,” one respondent wrote. “I swear, I would reserve my bus seat in order to arrive at work on time.”
“Parking has gotten so expensive and complex at Highlands, that I wish there was a better [Aspen Highlands-Brush Creek] connection,” one respondent wrote.
Another called out the need for better drop-off infrastructure.
“I wish there was a space for a car to drop off passengers. A lot of days my husband and I will carpool from Basalt and he will drop me off at the park and ride to catch the bus into Aspen and he will continue to Snowmass,” they wrote. “There is no easy and safe place for him to pull in and drop me off. The access to the sidewalks from the parking lot are horrible because of the fence. There is one specific spot where you can cross to the buses.”
The third priority for respondents in the future of Brush Creek was “Long-Term airport parking/New shuttle service.”
Parking at the Aspen-Pitkin County Airport frequently meets capacity during peak travel times, like holidays and off-season. The county recently approved a new parking management contract for the airport, and now the county-managed Buttermilk Lot can serve as backup airport parking.
