TIME FOR A GONDOLA? Little Cottonwood Canyon Jammed with Traffic

Snowbird, UT / USA – January 7, 2020: Aerial Tram viewed from the top of Hidden Peak at Snowbird Ski Resort in Little Cottonwood Canyon in the Wasatch Range near Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. By NG-Spacetime @ Shutterstock.com

If you’re wondering where all the workers went, look no further than the Silicon Slopes of Utah especially Little Cottonwood Canyon home to Alta, Snowbird, Solitude, and Brighton. Now there’s talk of constructing a gondola to get up the canyon because of the traffic, a “red snake” that can take hours to travel eight miles.

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NPR’s Kirk Siegler details the traffic problems in Little Cottonwood Canyon and the potential solution:

A few thousand feet below the stunning vistas of Alta’s High Traverse, near the bottom of Little Cottonwood canyon, is where the dreaded “red snake” can come into view. That’s what locals call the seemingly endless line of thousands of red tail lights idling along route 210.

On a big powder day, or a busy weekend, it can sometimes take more than three hours just to travel the windy, two lane, 8-mile road.

“Where we live, we couldn’t get out into the street,” says Kurt Reichelt, recalling a recent holiday weekend that coincided with big storms. “Everybody and their brother was trying to get up here.”

Reichelt and his buddy Brian Cardello, who are retired and originally from Stowe, Vermont, gave up trying to ski those days.

“We take the bus and while we’re waiting, we see so many cars with single drivers, I mean, nobody’s carpooling,” he adds.

Utah’s normally efficient public bus system is currently hobbled due to a reported driver shortage. It’s clear some people are giving up waiting for busses that either run less frequently or no longer stop at certain park-and-rides near the canyon’s entrance.

“There are just too many people,” Cardello says. “And it’s not [just] here it’s everywhere.”

Many blame discount season passes like the Ikon, which is good at Alta and Snowbird, or the Epic from Vail Resorts, which allow skiers to bounce easily from one resort to the next, and also chase the best snow between states.

A push for a gondola as a green alternative to driving

In the last 20 years, the number of skiers visiting Utah resorts has nearly doubled, from 3 million to now close to 6 million, according to Ski Utah, an industry trade group.

“We have the same infrastructure, the same road that we had 20 years ago,” says Mike Maughan, general manager of Alta.

And in a state that relies heavily on ski tourism — last year the industry raked in close to $1.4 billion — there’s pressure to fix the mess in the canyon.

Enter the gondola, which the Utah Department of Transportation estimates would move roughly the same number of skiers and commuters up Little Cottonwood in an hour — a thousand — as the road does on a rare, traffic-free day.

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E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. His focus at all times is on preparing clients and readers for “Times Like These.” E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zildjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart (RIP) of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@yoursurvivalguy.com To sign up for my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter, click here.