It’s that time of year again here in Carbon County.

The calendar is ticking away, and in a little over three months, we’ll be just days away from Christmas.

The arrival of fall brings the area all the beauty Mother Nature can offer as the deep greens that cover the surrounding summer mountainsides morph into the reds, yellows and golds of autumn.

It’s also the harbinger of a more pressing problem in the traffic and parking issues that tens of thousands of tourists bring when they come to celebrate nature’s glory.

The Fall Foliage Festival in Jim Thorpe begins next weekend and extends through the end of October.

For the next several weeks and weekends, traffic in and around Jim Thorpe could be horrific. Parking might be worse.

Many may remember that last year’s observance filled parking lots and snarled traffic to the point where Police Chief Joseph Schatz called it the worst he’d ever seen.

When the dust settled and the observance ended, Schatz vowed to gather with community representatives to set out to make this year’s fall festivities more palatable for visitors and locals.

The group’s goal was to ease some of the traffic congestion and parking issues.

This year, their plan is to use shuttles from locations outside the downtown Jim Thorpe area in addition to the usual Carbon County lot that costs $15 per day on weekends until 6 p.m. and limited street parking in the borough.

• Paid parking will be available at Immaculate Conception Church on Broadway at $25 cash per car until 9 p.m.

• Visitors can use Sam Miller Field on North Avenue for $20 per car the first three weekends in October. Shuttle service is included.

• Weekends through Nov. 3, Pocono Whitewater will offer parking and shuttle service from its facility at 1519 State Route 903 to 30 River St. Though parking is free, the 7-mile shuttle ride is available for $5 per person round trip. Visitors will take a 3/4-mile walk across the Sgt. A.J. Baddick Bridge to the downtown area, then return before 7 p.m. when their visit ends to get back to their vehicles.

• Also, the county has a plan to offer parking on event weekends between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. in October through an agreement with LANTA that will offer shuttles to the downtown. Spots, at $25 each, must be reserved online in advance.

Though the county will pay LANTA just over $16,000 for the service, increased ridership will earn Carbon more money for transportation throughout the rest of the year.

Those venues will certainly ease the competition for parking spaces when the crowds arrive, but there are still no definitive answers to the annual dilemma. Despite officials best efforts, there may never be answers.

That’s because the same allure that draws visitors to the borough is also its traffic downfall.

Realistically, the beauty of the Victorian-era downtown is probably the same as it was more than a century ago, long before automobiles clogged the roads.

As its popularity grows, local officials walk a tightrope to offer needed services and keep the business community and revenue it generates for the local economy.

At some point, there may have been solutions to the parking issues, like building a garage or providing more lots in the downtown area.

But doing so could cost the borough a piece of perhaps its biggest commodity, history.

Consider what happened to the north, in downtown Hazleton, where countless old buildings were razed beginning in the 1960s under the banner of “urban renewal.”

The center city — especially its south side — was ravaged by the wrecking ball in the name of shiny, new structures with plenty of parking that would bring people in droves.

Federal money flowed into town as small businesses shut their doors when block-by-block the buildings fell, tossing their history into a landfill somewhere.

These days, those buildings are beginning to show their age and there’s plenty of parking. Many businesses never returned. And now, there’s no reason for people to come downtown.

Jim Thorpe still offers that opportunity. It’s one that other places around the area are attempting to emulate.

In a community that hung its future on tourism when it took on the name of the “World’s Greatest Athlete,” the shuttles, traffic and congestion are certainly an inconvenience for visitors and locals alike.

But in the long run, the toll it takes is a small price to pay for something that can’t be replaced.

ED SOCHA | tneditor@tnonline.com