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The city of Aspen’s Director of Transportation and Parking Pete Rice will step down from his role at the end of the month.
He will mo
Rice first started with the city in 2016 as a project manager in the engineering department. In that role, he said he learned quickly that a project doesn’t get completed unless he can really work with the community. Once he assumed the role of transportation and parking director, he oversaw several engineering capital projects, including projects along the Highway 82 corridor. He described his role as figuring out the easiest way to move people around and how to develop transit around the community’s values.
Rice also worked extensively on the Castle Creek Bridge project, especially in the last year as conversations ramped up again about the entrance to Aspen.
“I would say the bridge is probably the hardest [thing I’ve worked on]. It’s taken 30 years,” Rice said. “But I think we made some good strides here in the last couple of years towards that. I think the council understands the situation with the existing bridge and I think that they just have to come up with a solution that they can present to the state and federal groups that represents this community now.”
He also said one of the hardest parts of the job was determining how to operate a parking and transit system that has become more data driven.
“The future is really implementing technology to help us with that [parking] system, and what we’ve discovered in this master planning is probably the technology isn’t quite there, and the community values may not quite be there yet,” he said.
In fall 2023, the city launched a parking and transportation master plan called “Aspen Gets Us There” that is meant to develop a more sustainable parking and transportation system.
It’s unclear who will take over for Rice. Public Works Director Tyler Christoff said the city will appoint existing staff to interim roles in the parking and transportation department as the city seeks a new director. He said the city would likely look at both internal and external candidates.
Christoff lauded Rice’s community-focused approach to his role as parking and transportation director.
“He really embodies kind of a collaborative community-first approach, which I think has really served him and our organization well,” Christoff said. “He’s built a lot of important relationships with folks in the community and I think he’s a trusted resource.”
A timeline to replace Rice is uncertain, Christoff said.
Rice said he will miss being a part of a community that is as engaged in their local government as the Aspen community is.
“I think I always had my office door open, and this community takes advantage of that,” he said. “I’ve gotten to know a lot of people pretty personally, especially this bridge, the people involved in this bridge, they’ve had a lot of conversations with me and I’m going to miss a lot of that public piece of this job.”