Sunday, January 17, 2016

Change in the Cottonwoods Is Desperately Needed

I have lived in Salt Lake City for 20 years and have seen dramatic changes in the Cottonwood Canyons during that period.  The canyons have always been popular, but transportation and parking for either resort or backcountry recreation is at its breaking point on many weekends and holidays.  This year we seem to be pushing it to a whole new level with major backups for the canyons and lots filling at resorts in both canyons.  Backcountry trailhead parking is becoming quite difficult.  Yesterday, the number of cars parked at Mineral Fork and Butler Fork was staggering.

Perhaps there's a lot of pent up powder desire out there and this is just a temporary surge, but I doubt it.  Population projections for Utah show another million people will be here by 2035, possibly earlier depending on the estimate.  This is due to both internal growth (i.e., birth rate) and in migration, with those in the latter category frequently coming and staying here for the remarkable quality of life and access to recreation that we have here in Utah.
Source: http://www.utahfoundation.org/uploads/rr720.pdf
There is no place in the United States like the Cottonwood Canyons (and Mill Creek to the north) with their combination of snow quality and ease of access to a major metropolitan area.

With some hard work, you can find skiing like this less than 3 miles from the edge of the Salt Lake City metropolitan area.
Surveying friends, I find a remarkable range of views about options for the future.  One thing is clear, the status quo is a recipe for disaster as we are now frequently at the carrying capacity for automobile transport into the canyons.  Doing nothing means more gridlock and further degradation of quality of life we enjoy.  And no more making fun of Colorado and their I-70 gridlock.

Ignoring potential rail solutions, which are likely to be costly and take many decades to implement if they ever see the light of day, we need to look at ways to get more people up the canyon highways more efficiently.  This could include improvements in current bus service, which often works well on days when it's not very busy (although bus routes midday are often lacking), but can be a disaster on busy days due to limited parking near the canyon mouths, overcrowding, difficulties even getting on late day buses if you aren't at the first stop, etc.  

Another option that might be implemented quickly and at low cost is slugging.  Slugging is a car sharing option used in the Washington D.C. area in which drivers pick up passengers at designated locations with similar destinations in order to travel in HOV lanes.  I've always though such an approach has some potential in the Cottonwoods.  A number of pick-up-areas could be designated on major routes to the canyons, possibly even at some bus stops, and drivers would pull in, announce where they are going (e.g., Alta, Snowbird, Solitude, or Brighton), and people with those destinations would hop in for the ride.  Basically this is hitchhiking with some organization.  Uber is providing a paid car-service already, but the idea with slugging is that it would be free.  

For slugging to be successful, carpooling would need to be incentivized, either through some sort of HOV access to the canyon mouths (perhaps doable to Big Cottonwood, Little Cottonwood might be more difficult unless something more draconian were implemented like SR-210 being HOV or local traffic only from 7-10 am), better or cheaper parking at the resorts, etc (it's hard to imagine that paid parking isn't going to become more common at the resorts).  The issue of return back to the Salt Lake Valley is another potentially problematic area since people would need to slug back to the Salt Lake Valley and typically this would not be with the person who drove them up the canyon.  

There's no silver bullet, but change is needed, or gridlock will only worsen in Wasageles.  

17 comments:

  1. While slugging sounds good, I don't think it would work well. Many people don't even like to sit with strangers on the lift. I think a dedicated shuttle system similar to Bryce or Zion would be the best way. The cost would be way less than some type of rail system, even with the procurement of land somewhere in the valley for parking.

    The amount of traffic going up Little Cottonwood was amazing Saturday. I was lucky I got there early and it was still slow going up, but there was plenty of parking. I talked to people who arrived 15 or 20 minutes later and the parking lots were all full. Traffic was bumper to bumper up canyon as I left around noon and was probably that way most of the day. Certainly the time to act is now while land still might be available to build parking close to the base of the canyons.

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  2. I think the probably mainly lies in Utahns preference for traveling in their own separate vehicle. It's amazing watching all the people driving up with empty cars, completely unaware of the parking situation that awaits them atop the canyon. Many times, the buses (960 or 962 for Big Cottonwood) are almost empty, yet the traffic remains at high volume.

    Possible solutions include subsidizing the cost of bus service, plus increasing the overall frequency of trips up the canyon. Through an aggressive PR/marketing campaign, one would think the public would wise up to the benefits of taking mass transit, overcoming the perceived notion that it's only for teenagers and poorer folks. Some of Salt Lake's biggest problems are rooted in the notion that everything should be auto-dependent. I totally agree that better transportation planning is key to smarter growth in the future.

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    1. Carpooling is a great idea. We need to change our mindset and be more flexible and step up to the plate and do it. It's surprising to me how many times I try to carpool with friends and they tell me "I want to have my own car...meet you there." I don't know if it's a generational thing or what but many of us need to change our attitude and our behavior.

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  3. It seems like the only way people change is when confronted with a lack of other options. Make the four canyons (Parleys to LCC) ridiculously-tolled-only for non-through traffic, to the tune of $30 a mile or more. Make solo driving a heavily-ticketable offense. (Think a grand or more.) Let traffic get so bad that people give up, like three hours from the 711 to Brighton. That sort of thing, then tax in a responsible manner and make bus service the only option. Building more parking, even at the mouths of the canyons, is just putting off the problem. More parking area is always a bad plan for everyone not directly involved, and though it seems like everyone in Salt Lake County skis, it's still a small minority of the actual populace who head up the canyons. Even a major over-estimation of 40,000 people (I think the busy-day number I've seen for LCC is around 8,000) in the three SLC canyons per Saturday vs. the one million plus who live in SL Co. means we shouldn't waste money or land on the privileged. (We are all privileged who can ski.) Spending money on people who don't live here is an even worse idea. Also, trying to teach the local zealots that the land and air isn't theirs to destroy is just wasted effort. These aren't people who learn other peoples' lessons. Lastly, a bit aside, the quality of life here isn't any better than anywhere I've lived or visited, except maybe Fallon, NV. The snow is decent, but you get decent snow all over the west. (Yes, Cascade Concrete is fun. Just ask Snowbasin.) The mountains are decent, but I'd take an empty Mores Creek Summit in Boise County over a busy BCC any day. The sin laws are utterly ridiculous, no matter how many times and how many people complain; those folks' complaints are truly valid. Basically, gloating is silly when there are so many jerks horkin' yer lines. I'm only being a little facetious when I say "Lookout Pass, here I come!"

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  4. It's not just the SLC area that's experiencing this...

    http://azdailysun.com/news/local/will-bumper-to-bumper-traffic-get-worse/article_22867ba1-7264-5752-b2b7-28002c20e1e2.html

    -db-

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  5. I would take the bus more often if 1. It was faster than driving and sitting behind traffic (designated bus lane only...etc) and 2. If the bus didn't have to stop at every single stop within Snowbirds many connection points (LCC specific). This means if skiing at Alta for the day, I have to sit through 4 stops before we are even on the way to Alta and likewise on the return trip. Watching jerry's get on and off the bus with an armful of skis and poles is rather comical and a time waste.

    It seems like common sense, we all driving because it's faster and convenient. Provide something with similar characteristics and you'll see a drop in car travel up and down the canyon. Everyone has an opinion on what the alternative should be to individual car travel, however politics always finds away to slow a solution down.

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    1. I agree that more people would take the buses if they had an advantage over cars, and were more reliable. Right now, if I take the bus, I am just sitting (or standing if it's busy) for the same amount of time I'd otherwise be sitting in my car. Add in the wait time for the bus and multiple Snowbird stops and it takes considerably longer.
      I would propose:
      1. Add one lane up and down LCC. It would be a designated bus lane, going up in the mornings and down in the afternoons. Buses would travel in normal traffic otherwise (so a bus going down in the morning just goes in traffic.) This means that during peak times, the buses have a direct path, out of traffic. It's not cheap, but it's a lot cheaper than a train or adding multiple lanes up and down LCC.
      2. Build a parking deck at the Wasatch park and ride and double or triple the number of buses going out of there. Buses from this deck would go up and down both canyons. This would make canyon to canyon tours via bus easier. Again, that gives buses another advantage over cars, which encourages ridership.
      3. Have every other bus up LCC just make one Snowbird stop and one Alta stop. All other buses would hit the resorts and popular trailheads (White Pine, Mineral, Cardiff, Spruces and maybe a few other spots in BCC)

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  6. I live in between the two Cottonwood Canyons and tried to take the bus last winter. It was a powder day. 2 cars stopped and offered me a ride while I waited (one was a friend) but I refused because I wanted the full experience. The bus was 45 minutes late and I was beginning to think I'd missed it entirely.

    Great bus driver. He gave me the history behind his 20+ years of driving so it was entertaining. The way up was fairly enjoyable although I too was going to Alta and it took quite awhile to go through all of Snowbird. But it was the way down that killed me. I got on the bus first and put my poles/skis in the holder. Then the masses from Snowbird got on. Because I was one of the first off the bus and it was so packed - I had a hard time getting my skis/poles off and since it felt like everyone was watching I panicked and ended up with the wrong pair of poles. I tried to chase the bus to the Midvale station but never found it. The next day I went downtown and was able to trade poles - but still...

    I'd be more up for the bus if it was more user friendly - and seriously light rail would be preferred. The other negative with the buses is that in the summer when us mountain bikers would gladly bus up to Solitude/Brighton and the Crest - there is no bus... Just the shuttle that we have to drive over to Millcreek to catch.

    All for a transportation solution though. I would have no problem with them charging for a Cottonwood Parking pass or $5 per trip. That would cut down on the cars right there and they could use the money for rail/busses...

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  7. Well it obviously needs to be more than $5 per trip otherwise people aren't dissuaded to drive. Try $25 per car and a reliable public transport system and maybe now we're talking.

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  9. Let's try this again...

    As someone who grew up in Colorado's Summit County and experienced I-70 throughout the years, we really have two choices here in Utah: 1) Be proactive in finding a solution or 2) Find a solution after we're fed up with the problem. The latter is far more expensive and a much bigger hassle. But the former requires a lot of people with different ideologies and priorities to work together on a common, important goal.

    I have no real expertise in this area, but my thought is that the solution is a mix between increasing the number of cars per hour that can get through and making ride sharing and public transportation an attractive option. HOV lanes are a good place to start, perhaps allowing single-occupant cars to use them at a hefty price, with some of that money going to subsidize a public transportation solution.

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  10. UDOT needs to get rid of those awful downhill passing lanes in Little Cottonwood. They do nothing but add stress and increase road rage at the end of the day. I guess we should just count our lucky stars that the UDOT engineers haven't put U-turns or divergent diamonds in the canyon yet.

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  11. When I used to ski in LC, I always picked up hitchhikers for the ride up. This will be topic of discussion for another 10 years before anything is done so don't get too excited.There is no will so there is no way to fix it. It is all talk and no action. I have lived here 20 years and nothing, and I mean nothing has changed. It is a joke factory.

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  12. Why do we want to increase skier density in the Cottonwoods? Buses, slugs, ubers, trains, whatever's seem to me to simply degrade the experience of skiing there by promoting overcrowding. Limited parking limits skier density, no?

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  13. Skiing is too cheap, obviously. Sounds like the resorts need to raise prices. No need to come up with elaborate transportation "solutions" that will lose their effectiveness a few short years after implementation.

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