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Blog Entry 26 of 39 The Donnanator Report
My favorite article topics have been soccer and healthcare issues related to my profession. I'm likely to keep focusing on those, and throw in social commentary and satire as necessary. There are plenty of health, nutrition and food behaviors just screaming for the kind of commentary possible with a blog, and who better to write those than a nutrition professional? I'm a big proponent of taking personal responsibility for health, and that philosophy will definitely influence my analysis of healthcare and health insurance issues. As for soccer, I've written about high school soccer, because that's what makes for good headlines, but clearly mainstream news organizations in the US need to improve coverage and analysis of all soccer, from local clubs to the World Cup.

Blog Url: http://denver.yourhub.com/~TheDonnanator

70-70 Vision
Contributed by: Donna Feldman   on 4/8/2008

News flash this morning: I-70 has now been closed 70 times this winter due to weather-related accidents. Add in the frequent creeping congestion due to weather and the weekend congestion due to ski traffic, and it's a wonder anyone ventures West from Denver anymore. But they do, of course, Despite the closures and congestion, ski resorts report record skier visits so far this year. Certain politically-connected skiers don't like sitting in traffic, and now we have the I-70 toll proposal as a supposed solution.

I have to wonder how a toll is going to fix the congestion and closure issues that are weather, rock slide and accident-related? What if you get up early to avoid paying a timed toll, only to find yourself stuck behind an accident? You creep ahead and by the time you get to the toll booth, you have to pay to continue creeping forward. How will drivers feel about a 24/7 toll if they're still stuck on I-70 because of icy roads, white-out blizzards, rock slides and jack-knifed tractor trailers? Not too happy.

A toll will fix nothing about I-70 congestion. Happily, there's one small step ski areas can take right now to encourage skiers to travel on weekdays - season passes targeted to Monday-Friday use. A fellow skier says this is already being offered by some areas. Why not all of them? If a significant number of skiers switch to weekdays, there will be less traffic on weekends. Who would these people be? Retirees, child-free adults with flexible schedules or vacation time, families with home-schooled children, college students. These days, the argument that everyone is stuck skiing on weekends just doesn't wash. Obviously some skiers with inflexible 5-day work and school schedules couldn't take advantage of this type of pass, but if significant numbers of skiers did, the weekend skiers would have less traffic to deal with. This plan could go into effect immediately, and involves no money-sucking government bureaucracy to implement. Best of all, it wouldn't contribute to that other major cause of congestion, traffic coming to a complete stop at the toll booths.


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Submitted By: Barbara Neff
posted on 4/12/2008 @ 2:50:07 PM
Rated Blog Entry
good insights, donna. weekday skiers also can include workers not bound by traditional business hours, and the numbers of such workers increases daily.
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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Donna Feldman

Louisville , CO

Donna Feldman has posted 39 blog entries and 0 comments since joining on 9/14/2005. Donna Feldman 's average blog rating is 4.65.
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