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Carpooling and parking safety concerns

Tricia

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This Summit Daily article suggests that Arapahoe Basin is not encouraging skiers to car pool which is creating a safety concern with illegal parking along the road.
Illegal parking a problem near Arapahoe Basin

Meanwhile Squaw took a huge leap this year with a carpool lot (3 or more in the car) or pay $30.00/day to park, according to Squaw sources, its in alliance with their Protect Our Winter initiative.
They were lambasted in the social circles about being greedy, yet according to their statistics, it encouraged people to carpool.

Since then, they have rolled back the $30 parking fee for non holiday times and are being more flexible, yet they claim that this initiative has encouraged more people to carpool even when the fee isn't being enforced.

That being said, how does Arapahoe Basin encourage skiers to NOT carpool?
Can they do something to buddy up on the drive up without being crushed in social media?
 
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Andy Mink

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I thought it said they have a carpool lot? Maybe they're not overtly promoting it. If illegal parking is such an issue perhaps they need to limit the number of skiers on the hill, like Deer Valley.
 

bbinder

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Aspen Highlands lets you park for free if you have 4 or more in your car. Otherwise you pay. Huge incentive to carpool or take the bus.
 

Philpug

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Aspen Highlands lets you park for free if you have 4 or more in your car. Otherwise you pay. Huge incentive to carpool or take the bus.
3 or more is realistic...4 or more? Not sure.
 

David Chaus

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Stevens has a $20 or free-for-4-person-carpool lot, it’s usually full so they added another one near the pedestrian bridge across the highway. This is in effect on Sat/Sun/holidays, otherwise it’s all free.
 

jmeb

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I thought it said they have a carpool lot? Maybe they're not overtly promoting it. If illegal parking is such an issue perhaps they need to limit the number of skiers on the hill, like Deer Valley.

Part of their main ("early riser") lot is dedicated carpool or pay.

3 or more is realistic...4 or more? Not sure.

Part of the problem is that 4 is the number at Abasin as well. Which is pretty ridiculous and gives less incentive to do so. In the Aspen context you're probably only shoving 4 people into the car for 15-30min. At Abasin, you're talking more like an hour plus, not to mention a much spicier drive.
 

raytseng

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I didn't reach that conclusion from reading the article. :huh:
It says
Earlier this season, Arapahoe Basin rolled out a new parking plan to help ease some stress and take cars off the highway, including reserving 200 parking spaces in the Early Riser lot for individuals participating in carpools of four or more people (or those willing to pay an extra $20 to park).
 

James

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Aspen Highlands lets you park for free if you have 4 or more in your car. Otherwise you pay. Huge incentive to carpool or take the bus.
There's a bus stop down the road and people hitch. We picked up two last time I was there. One went in the pickup bed.

That lot is too small to allow just three/car.
 

RachelV

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Oh man, this has come up in the Colorado thread, too.

It is super super frustrating to me, as someone who didn't own a car for the first ~10 years of my adult life and legitimately loves taking mass transit, that the Summit Stage is so mediocre. The routes are really disjoint and the buses just don't run enough, especially on peak weekends and holidays. Resorts creating pay parking seems like such a crappy solution to this problem. If there are reasons that the Summit County resorts don't team up to throw some money at better bus service, I'd love to hear them. I don't see why anyone staying up in Summit should feel like they have to drive a car to go to Copper / Keystone / Breck / A-Basin.

This just came up on Al's blog as well: http://arapahoebasin.blogspot.com/2019/01/parking-peak-days.html

I left a comment to this effect (which hasn't been approved yet) -- hopefully Al will shed some more light on how they're working to solve this problem (aside from creating 10 rows of $20 parking, which is not an overwhelmingly creative solution) in a future post.
 

James

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The shuttle from Denver airport used to refuse to go to Abasin, even in May with dry roads. Keystone is as far as they'll go. Maybe it's changed.
 

raytseng

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Shuttles has to be funded.
To get an improvement you need funding like a $1 or 1% tax on goods and services (hotels/lifttickets/restaurants).

the microtransit is pretty smart way to generate space as the locals leave their vehicles in their garage. And the on demand nature is convenient enough and familiar as uber/lyft to make it used. I've only used it at squawalpine new but its based on success in aspen parkcity beavercreek.

As I read into the details for the squawalpine mountaineer tbough, this too was funded by a tax and not just by squawalpine turning around and charging for those spaces to pay for it.
 

tball

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IMO, A-basin needs to buy a piece of land down the highway, build a parking lot, and run their own shuttles on peak days. This isn't rocket science. They expanded the ski area. They need to expand the parking to match the new capacity of the area.
 

Coach13

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IMO, A-basin needs to buy a piece of land down the highway, build a parking lot, and run their own shuttles on peak days. This isn't rocket science. They expanded the ski area. They need to expand the parking to match the new capacity of the area.

Sounds pretty reasonable to me. It’s not like folks are able to walk over to the lifts from the hotels, condos, etc. You’ve got to take something with tires on it to get there.
 

skix

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I'm part of the problem since I generally ski early and alone. Typically there's 1 or 2 of us in the car along with the skis and equipment. Skis are inside (no roof box) so 4 passengers is barely doable. Up to now we'd drive up there and park conveniently for free in the lower lot but now on weekends it means mass transit, parking remotely, or paying up to park. I don't at all knock those for who that is ok but I'm not used to so much hassle or expense to practice a chosen sport. Played racquetball 5 days a week for years and if I was ever more than 100 foot from the front door I'd be surprised. But paying 10 or 20 dollars every time I "practice" skiing just to get close is out of my budget.

Generally the reaction to these personal concerns from others is to tell to me to quit whining. Which is fine but doesn't change the fact that for me it does make a difference how much time and money it takes to get from my door to the lifts. It also matters whether I can get back to my car during the day without an ordeal. Adding to this is that once I'm there (on the weekend) I have more often than not been finding more delays at the lifts. Taken together it means weekends at ABasin have dropped way down the list of things to do.

Monday through Friday the place still rocks of course.
 

jmeb

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Up to now we'd drive up there and park conveniently for free in the lower lot but now on weekends it means mass transit, parking remotely, or paying up to park.

Sorry -- but this just doesn't line up. The carpool-only or pay area is less than half the Early Riser lot, the remaining half is still first come first serve. You can still park <5min walk away in the next lot even if you miss the first.
 

pchewn

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IMO, A-basin needs to buy a piece of land down the highway, build a parking lot, and run their own shuttles on peak days. This isn't rocket science. They expanded the ski area. They need to expand the parking to match the new capacity of the area.

Be careful what you ask for. I'm pretty sure the experience of A-Basin will be diminished if they add capacity of parking or mass transit to the point where the lifts or the runs are overcrowded. The ski areas on Mt Hood where I ski are limited in parking and I like it that way. The lots get full, they turn people away and the lifts and runs are not crowded. I don't want them to increase the crowds on the hill, I'd rather the crowd be limited to the parking area.
 

skix

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Sorry -- but this just doesn't line up. The carpool-only or pay area is less than half the Early Riser lot, the remaining half is still first come first serve. You can still park <5min walk away in the next lot even if you miss the first.

You don't think it's a walk from halfway back in the early riser lot? That's assuming of course you're there to grab those best rows of the back half.

Like I said ... people blow off that I should care. Whatever. Wrong or right I stopped doing weekends at the Basin.
 

jmeb

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You don't think it's a walk from halfway back in the early riser lot? That's assuming of course you're there to grab those best rows of the back half.

Like I said ... people blow off that I should care. Whatever. Wrong or right I stopped doing weekends at the Basin.

A walk? I mean...compared to anywhere else you park in the state of CO...no I don't think its a walk. Maybe up to the lodge. But its a couple hundred yards at worst to Pavi.

You're welcome to your opinion. Just clarifying for others that there is still lots of <5min walk free parking at Abasin on weekends. The only other place in places in the front range that come close are Loveland and Mary Jane.
 

skix

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You're welcome to your opinion. Just clarifying for others that there is still lots of <5min walk free parking at Abasin on weekends.

At this point, yes, there definitely will be free parking in the lower lot for a couple hundred people that get there and parked by 730 am on Saturday morning.
 

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