Magazine
November 14, 2005
Denver, Colo., one of the West’s most sprawling, traffic-choked cities, has become a champion of mass transit with FasTracks, its ambitious light-rail project. Also in this issue: A provision in the new energy bill promises funding to speed up the oil and gas permitting process in BLM offices – without costing the industry an extra penny.
Feature
Denver, Colo., one of the West’s most sprawling,
traffic-choked cities, has become a champion of mass transit with
FasTracks, its ambitious light-rail project
Editor's Note
Westerners may love their cars, but the region’s
rapid growth means that even the most ardent car-lovers have a
stake in mass transit, and in Denver’s grand experiment in
light rail
Uncommon Westerners
Janelle Holden, the daughter of two Republican
legislators, works with the Predator Conservation Alliance in
Montana to help ranchers learn how to co-exist with wolves and
other predators
Essays
Sen. Larry Craig’s suggestion that New
Orleans’ 9th Ward be restored as a wetland may represent a
newfound respect for the power of nature and the limits of the
human ability to control it
As mountain towns get more accessible and lively, even in
midwinter, the author relishes the way his tiny, remote town slows
to a stop once the mountain pass highway is closed for the
season
Dear Friends
Thanks to readers for Research Fund gifts and the many
responses to HCN’s survey;
visitors
News
A provision in the new energy bill promises funding to
speed up the oil and gas permitting process in BLM offices –
without costing the industry an extra penny
Assistant Interior Secretary Rebecca Watson resigns; Texas
oil baron Oscar Wyatt indicted in Iraq oil-for-food scandal;
Congress won’t fund "bunker buster" nukes; Fish and Wildlife
OK with lynx mortality at proposed Wolf Creek ski village
American Indian tribes face an uphill battle in their
effort to protect sacred sites on federal land in the
West
A land-exchange plan especially designed for
California’s Eastern Sierra could help prevent development
controversies such as the current one over the proposed Whitney
Portal project near scenic Lone Pine
Oregon’s controversial Measure 37, which de-clawed
the state’s famous land-use regulations, has been ruled
unconstitutional by a Marion County judge.
The La Plata County commissioners have signed two deals
allowing energy companies to double the density of coalbed methane
wells near Durango, Colo.
Conservationists fear that the new National Park Service
management policy will reduce environmental protection at the
expense of commercial interests
The Fish and Wildlife Service has announced plans to
remove the marbled murrelet from the endangered species list,
despite the small seabird’s declining numbers
Book Reviews
Laura Pritchett’s first novel, Sky Bridge, perfectly
captures the speech and rhythms of everyday life in the
hardscrabble ranchland of the eastern Colorado plains
Ethnobotanist Kat Anderson’s new book, Tending the
Wild, examines the way California’s native peoples used
– and shaped – the landscape’s natural resources
before Europeans invasion
In Imperfect Pasture, Bruce Smith, Eric
Cole and David Dobkin examine the conservation successes –
and failures – of the National Elk Refuge near Jackson,
Wyo.
The Mountain Encyclopedia by Frederic
V. Hartemann and Robert Hauptman delivers intriguing,
well-illustrated facts and figures about mountainous topics from
all over the world
Heard Around the West
Old-timers can no longer ski for free at Park City;
80-year-old farmer won’t slow down; scary killer bee stories;
Alaskan pork; Bluff vs. Pokershare.com; no road to new high school
in Tombstone
Letters
Related Stories
Longer commuter rails could connect the West’s
far-flung cities in ways they haven’t been connected since
the glory days of the railroad
Architect Kevin Koernig, who commutes from suburban
Littleton to downtown Denver, loves light rail because it saves him
money, keeps him healthy, and gives him extra time to
read
Charlie Lybrand enjoys living in his transit-oriented
complex in metro Denver, because he rarely has to drive to get to
college or go out to party
Light rail has become unexpectedly popular in deeply
conservative Salt Lake City, Utah
