Enough of Park City, time to flame one wasatch

[pvars]

I just gotta say, the transportation angle is so overblown. Traffic in the Cottonwoods is all about SLC and has little to do with PC. The SLC MSA is like 1.7 million people. Summit County has 36k - yeah it gets a lot of tourists. But if you want to talk about transportation solutions you need to talk about getting SLC up the Cottonwoods not PC. Seriously, you think PC tourists are lodging there to ski LCC - no, they just are not.

[bigdude2468]

I just gotta say, the transportation angle is so overblown. Traffic in the Cottonwoods is all about SLC and has little to do with PC. The SLC MSA is like 1.7 million people. Summit County has 36k - yeah it gets a lot of tourists. But if you want to talk about transportation solutions you need to talk about getting SLC up the Cottonwoods not PC. Seriously, you think PC tourists are lodging there to ski LCC - no, they just are not.

Amen. So typical of this crap, bait and switch. I live in Sandy so for me its 20 minutes on a normal day up LCC, 40 minutes to PC. Take my location 10 minutes north and its about a push driving to the Cottonwoods or Park City. Why would anyone drive up BCC or LCC and have the weekend nonsense driving down when for a few minutes longer you drive to PC. Maybe Mtn starts charging to park like they do at Vail which might make a difference.

There is no reasonable public transportation option from SLC to PC. As far as the Cottonwoods I am all for it but I just don't see a viable option unless you can stomach several billion $ for four months of the year. UTA has not helped by cutting the number of buses. I guess you could charge for parking or make it an HOV for cars with just one person to encourage car pools. BUT, before you push the car pool idea they have to get some parking closer to the mouth of LCC particularly.

[Bromontana]

For transport up canyon, they could easily limit traffic to residents and revamp public transit. Resorts will probably be against it, along with motorcyclists, climbers, fishermen, hikers, photographers, and picnickers. There are so many stops on the way up BCC, as an example, it would be tough to properly service.

[skifishbum]

Right now the south face of LCC canyon that's contiguous to Solitude is bc. Take GG and make that area lift served going up to the ridge and you have two resorts right next to SF/Days. Silver gets pressured more and Days becomes the new Silver. Overlooking that type of trickle down effect is pretty important to minimizing the impact on the backcountry community.

Further, the south face of BCC becomes fair game once lifts connect back to that side. The need for touring gear is a big part of limiting the PC--> BCC side country participants.

Maybe the better question is, who and what is not affected by the creation of a 15,000 acre mega resort complex for the upper class?

dude you really need to get out of the pen and ski some snake, mill, broads, mineral, hogum, alpine, etc, fore the trickle down takes em out,
to understand the difference tween sidecountry and back and stop calling terrain that has been lift served sidecountry for more than a decade bc
it quit being bc right around the time the chuters gallery got published and gates opened
quit calling terrain you can legally skin to from brighton anytime inacessable
as far as i know gw and millie are uphill friendly so i'm not sure where you get these assumptions bout this ending or the $15 one riders endin or solis 10 changing
soli isn't uphill friendly, but the outa sight outa mind use some common sense and stay away from control routes works
alta well best bet is for you to learn to ski then buy a pass then boycott so Ono feels your RAGE
shit you don't even need learn to ski but it would seem silly to buy a pass you couldn't use

been employed in the ski industry since i got here in 96
know a hell of a lot of other peeps whose breads gettin buttered others desire to ski here
and well trickle down funny huh??? you can choose to deny dtm's solid truism of the bc bein a lot more back from the valley floor and what exactly the ski tourism influx of $$$ means to the wasatch and local businesses.
the funny thing is i'm kida doubtful on this whole thing really butterin all that much bread
it'll all still boils down to ullr whim and conditions
just cause i think your arguments are a bit dubious and unfactual don't mean i'm for the current propsed project
but i'm just not gonna loose nearly as much sleep or expend as much energy worrying bout it as some of you
i am curious about the demographics of who will use these lifts and how many will for sc acess
and if easy freshies will trickle any peeps away from sloggin up argenta
you should make the nonewastch stickers
i'd rock em
right next to my
squatters
no 2002
and
no powderturds stickers

[schindlerpiste]

I just had a conversation with someone who is very active in Summit County politics. I was told that Vail is actually against One Wasatch as a means of transportation. As an alternative, Vail is pushing a metro above ground rail system that will travel from the airport and downtown SLC to the Canyons using the old rail lines and the space between I-80 E & W as a corridor. It will stop at the Can., and the existing bus service will continue to connect the Canyons to downtown P.C. Thoughts?

[Bromontana]

If it's public financing they should do it justice and link it to PC directly. Stops at the summit/junction/outlets, Canyons, PC. Benefits would be year round and help SL Co too.

[Tippster]

I wanna know how they plan on getting us fat tourists with the $$$ to pay for a CircusPass down from Fantasy ridge to the rest of Solitude when we head back to our Deer Valley digs from the braggin' rights runs we took on Sunspot.

BTW - I use the Alta/Bird ticket all the time - up Peruvian, through the Basshole, then up the Baldy Express takes 20 minutes max - less time than waiting for the fucking bus, plus you're actually on the hill already. Spend the day in Alta and go Sugarloaf to Mineral and you're back.

[skifishbum]

^^
ski the fantasy gnars
down climb the fantsay gnar booter
ski down michigan city to tlp &
reverse highway 2 hev or
ski down tlp to b right on/ solbright
or continue up fants along the ridgeline to go ski powder in silver fk some might call it their backcountry pow but
no one owns the pow it is a first come first served commodity
or seeing as my old man bootered out to ski grannies back in 01 when he retired
you can ski wolverine cirque i know you can
hell iceman can it'll just take me longer to convince him
down to fig 8 and down n out solbright

[Canada1]

Parleys doesn't have a traffic problem. Big and little do.

[bigdude2468]

If it's public financing they should do it justice and link it to PC directly. Stops at the summit/junction/outlets, Canyons, PC. Benefits would be year round and help SL Co too.

Can't see this happening. A rail system is going to cost billions and the traffic issue is not from the airport / downtown to PC. For openers where do you put it at 80 & 215 junction? Then you have the fact it's Christmas to mid March and sits idle for the rest of the year. I don't believe light rail that far makes sense, has to be more like a conventional train with high speeds. If you use it for PC commuters downtown ok, but that does not do anything for the PC to BCC/ LCC skiers. Would you not get the same result with UTA servicing PC

[skifishbum]

^^^
i totally see that happening
just as soon as vail comes up w/ the coin to buy the church of the latter day saints
otherwise
holy highgrade brolorado medical thc driven pipe dream
did the legalize crack too?

[itsnowjoke]

To be clear, it's my understanding that the rail idea up Parley's is the county's wet dream. They've been pushing the idea to local businesses, our HOA, etc. It's been presented to the Mountain Accord and is on the table.

Carl Fisher of Save Our Canyons has even said that he supports it. But it's not Vail's idea or proposal as far as I know. -Which admittedly isn't much.

The county is touting the plan, stating that cars in and out of PC should ultimately be local traffic only. There are already so many houses in the area that it will never be Zermatt-like.

If you look at all of the One Wasatch material put out by Ski Utah, they are actually claiming that the interconnect is NOT a transportation solution. It's for recreational purposes only.

As far as Big & Little are concerned, a train up Big that forms a T at the top of the canyon with tunnels serving PC and Little would be awesome. Standing on a train with all of your gear is highly overrated though.

[Johnny Deep]

Will the train have a party car....like in the old days?

If so, I'm in.

[Sirshredalot]

I just had a conversation with someone who is very active in Summit County politics. I was told that Vail is actually against One Wasatch as a means of transportation. As an alternative, Vail is pushing a metro above ground rail system that will travel from the airport and downtown SLC to the Canyons using the old rail lines and the space between I-80 E & W as a corridor. It will stop at the Can., and the existing bus service will continue to connect the Canyons to downtown P.C. Thoughts?

It's pretty hard to imagine how this could be done in a way that makes sense and is affordable. The old rail lines in Parleys were torn up and the canyon was extensively regraded when they put in I 80. And the old rail bed running from Kimball Junction to old town PC ran through all the NewPark development and then out in the Swaner Nature Preserve toward Silver Springs, so that rail corridor is gone, too. AFAIK, no provision was made or corridor was set aside to put rail back in. So if you're putting in rail now, there's no cheap and easy way to assemble a right-of-way at rail grade. The project would cost billions and Parley's barely gets enough commuter traffic to justify the bus service right now.

The money would be better spent on Trax and UTA bus service down in Salt Lake and the inner-ring suburbs. The real problem, long-term, for traffic around here is the continued construction of sprawl in the west valley and north and south along the Wasatch Front. You probably need zoning reform along with improved public transit to head off that problem, but local government in West Valley City etc. won't do it. My money says our real traffic problem is going to be rush hour gridlock on I 15 within the next two decades.

[criscam]

Will the train have a party car....like in the old days?

If so, I'm in.

if you're gonna do it, might as well do it right.

[Shredhead]

None of this pie in the sky, train bullshit, will ever fly.

SLC is already one of the cheapest ski destinations in the US, with all the cheap hotels in the valley. Get a joint ticket agreement for all the resorts, a better bus system and it can be up and running next season.

[glademaster]

There should be no public road access up and down LCC, they should run a train up to Alta and build snowsheds over it so it can run basically regardless of the weather. This would require a development of a parking solution at the bottom, but would solve one the major Wasatch Front ski-related clusterfucks. It's foolish to invest in public transit from SLC to PC. Maybe if it was a winding mountain road between the two you could justify it, but there's a giant interstate that leads right to the town.

[schindlerpiste]

The man makes a lot of sense.

None of this pie in the sky, train bullshit, will ever fly.

SLC is already one of the cheapest ski destinations in the US, with all the cheap hotels in the valley. Get a joint ticket agreement for all the resorts, a better bus system and it can be up and running next season.

[joetron]

This would require a development of a parking solution at the bottom, but would solve one the major Wasatch Front ski-related clusterfucks. .

Build a giant parking structure on the gravel pit. Run Bus Rapid Transit. Sell breakfast burritos and coffee in the morning and tacos and beers at night. Step 4: Profit.

[glademaster]

Build a giant parking structure on the gravel pit. Run Bus Rapid Transit. Sell breakfast burritos and coffee in the morning and tacos and beers at night. Step 4: Profit.

That's only a solution if you prohibit non-canyon residents from driving up to the resorts, or charge an obscene toll. Driving up and down the canyons has to be actively discouraged by making it illegal, prohibitively expensive, or both.

[Canada1]

So how o you backcountry access? They can't stop the train at every pull out?

I like the idea of a buss service that works. I like the idea of changing the road bed to have the avalanches that roll onto the road, rolling over it. Just the logistics of it seem hard. Everyone arrives and departs at one time. How to handle that rush and then balance it to not be wasteful the rest of the year is hard.

[muted]

Put a train up Parleys Canyon. Then build a MTB trail down Parley's Canyon. It would be a fun way to shuttle bikes in the summer.

[Bromontana]

Looking at the distances, SLC--PC rail.. yeah probably way too expensive. A trax line down the east bench would be more beneficial to areas like foothill and bench congestion, though the cost is probably out of proportion to the problem as it currently stands.

This has some good perspective on Utah's not so awful traffic problem: Mtn accord assessment of transportation, April 2014

http://www.mountainaccord.com/pdf/MA...ons_041814.pdf

Two biggest issues I took away were weekend road congestion in winter and parking during peak summer/winter weekends. Two of those three could be helped with increased capacity for buses on winter weekends. And with all the interim access points throughout the seasons I don't see any way to limit rec. drivers during the summer.

overall:

In the study area, traffic volumes have remained relatively constant for 11 years,
with a decline in 2009 and an upward progression in recent years. In general, these
major roadways accessing the Wasatch Front and the Wasatch Back function
reasonably well. Traffic in the Cottonwood Canyons typically operates at free-flow
speeds, with the exception of weather incidents and road closures. According to the
Park City Transportation Master Plan, SR-224 typically operates at acceptable
levels of service, with peak hour congestion occurring near the Kimball Junction
interchange. SR-248 operates at a more marginal level of service during peak times,
with ski season congestion but good traffic flow during other times of the year

[bigdude2468]

There should be no public road access up and down LCC, they should run a train up to Alta and build snowsheds over it so it can run basically regardless of the weather. This would require a development of a parking solution at the bottom, but would solve one the major Wasatch Front ski-related clusterfucks. It's foolish to invest in public transit from SLC to PC. Maybe if it was a winding mountain road between the two you could justify it, but there's a giant interstate that leads right to the town.

You would need a cog rail system to get up a canyon that steep. You can't have just one track, you would have to have at least two so transport could be in both directions. If it takes 30 minutes up and 30 minutes down it still does not work as at peak times you could not have enough rail cars to get the mass of humanity all uphill in a < two hour window. Besides fucking up a great natural resource the cost is immense and in fact the problem is holidays - weekends. More parking at the bottom, express buses that go direct to Alta and a toll for less than HOV would be a start. Even if you add more buses via UTA the morning / afternoon rush requires equipment and resources that get use for just a couple of hours each AM / PM.

[skifishbum]

That's only a solution if you prohibit non-canyon residents from driving up to the resorts, or charge an obscene toll. Driving up and down the canyons has to be actively discouraged by making it illegal, prohibitively expensive, or both.

i'm totally w/ you
I have a hard time believing me a several hundred dollar a year or less a ski season canyon vehicle pass or a $10 a day fee can't fund decent public trans up the canyon
or we need the sugarhood walk to street car line a PC commuter/ vail train more than fixing the lcc leming line
trax from broburbia to downtown works great if ya got a couple extra hours in your day

As for easing the traffic congestion in Big And Little, try fixing the ski bus system. It is currently broke.

did it ever not suck?
the last bus down from b right on was 9:00 and they wouldn't even stop at soli.
so i always drove
do they run late buses down the lcc?
I rarely use it now as payin for broke shits whack
thing is you cant muck up the mouths w/ toll gates and people who aint got a grasp
you would need to have an online or outta the way kiosk
then failure we need to be enforced and big ass fine
better than the current chains/4wd policy is now