Reducing Traffic to Ski Areas -- RIDE

[Mike King]

Another excellent article from the Colorado Sun and Jason Blevins!

https://coloradosun.com/2019/03/27/...-30142877&mc_cid=f3c113107a&mc_eid=b8ce61c3ee

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[scott43]

Isn't that what uber is??? Oh right uber is just a taxi service...

 

[Mike King]

It's a lot more than Uber -- preferred parking, rewards, incentives, etc. It's a step in the right direction, especially if it can actually reduce the number of vehicle trips.

Mike

 

[scott43]

That was a shot at ubers campaign of obfuscation over what they are versus what they're supposed to be.

Ride is a great idea! Sorry to sidetrack!!

 

[BobMc]

Great idea, too bad it doesn't work.

 

[Cold Pork Chop]

Something's gotta give. This past President's holiday weekend in Tahoe, the storms shut down both main highways and the backup caused real problems. Caltrans was telling people who were stuck waiting that they would be better off driving to Disneyland, they would get there faster (folks who were <50 miles from Tahoe). Essentially, access to Tahoe was closed for the first day of the weekend. The backup flooded the small towns with people and cars, none of which they were prepared to handle. Lots of people getting creative going to the bathroom too. Bummer.

 

[raisingarizona]

World wide societal collapse should take care of the human population problem.

 

[WynnDuffy]

I’m a little confused by all these threads. Correct me if I’m wrong, but skier visits have been about 53 million give or take for twenty plus years. You’d think from the traffic/Ikon threads that there are three times as many people skiing as ten years ago.

 

[eok]

I’m a little confused by all these threads. Correct me if I’m wrong, but skier visits have been about 53 million give or take for twenty plus years. You’d think from the traffic/Ikon threads that there are three times as many people skiing as ten years ago.

My guess is that many many small-to-medium sized ski areas have closed over the last 20 years. So, the choices are fewer and the multi-passes (like IKon) drive people to just a few big/bigger resorts.

 

[Bad Bob]

Why can't there be a commuter train system up into and through the higher traffic mountains (other than the scream about the cost)? Up the I-70 corridor to Vail or better yet Glenwood Springs. Sacramento through to Reno with stops at Tahoe?

The costs depending on the areas might not be as bad as they sound at first depending on the region.

An example. When I-90 was being planned out through Montana across the Continental Divide out of Butte Montana School of Mines did an in depth study on the feasibility of putting a tunnel through instead of a road over the top of Homestake Pass. The mineral value coming out of the ore would have MORE than paid for the tunnel and the required infrastructure. The DOT thought this was very interesting then built the road.

Imagine Summit County with a lot fewer cars on the roads, or getting there without the aggravation.

 

[James]

Why can't there be a commuter train system up into and through the higher traffic mountains (other than the scream about the cost)? Up the I-70 corridor to Vail or better yet Glenwood Springs. Sacramento through to Reno with stops at Tahoe?

The costs depending on the areas might not be as bad as they sound at first depending on the region.

An example. When I-90 was being planned out through Montana across the Continental Divide out of Butte Montana School of Mines did an in depth study on the feasibility of putting a tunnel through instead of a road over the top of Homestake Pass. The mineral value coming out of the ore would have MORE than paid for the tunnel and the required infrastructure. The DOT thought this was very interesting then built the road.

Imagine Summit County with a lot fewer cars on the roads, or getting there without the aggravation.

This is partly why Colo voters nixed the 76 olympics. There were plans for a train up there.
Why you ask? Because it's America. We no longer believe in public projects.
Don't even get @RachelV started...

 

[Eleeski]

The train schedule from Sacramento to Truckee is too limited to be useful - we try. A few more trains at times that coincide with resort hours and coordinated with the buses to get to and from the resorts and maybe people would actually use the train.

Public transportation up from Reno airport would also help.

Of course, if Caltrans kept roads open (like they used to - I remember some hairy drives - and some long delays) that would help traffic on storm days.

Eric

 

[skix]

The costs depending on the areas might not be as bad as they sound at first depending on the region

In the U.S. new train systems get shot down all the time because it's claimed that they won't pay for themselves. The logic often is that rider fares must support the system and if not well then it's a waste of money. That same logic has never applied to auto travel of course. We tend to talk ourselves out of trains one way or another unfortunately.

For one example, California. Seems short-sighted to me:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail

In May 2015, the Los Angeles Times published an article by critics on the estimated operational revenue of the system in "Doing the math on California's bullet train fares".[84] The article raised a number of doubts that the system could be self-supporting, as required by Prop 1A"[85]​

 

[Ryan Dietrich]

This was posted recently on Alta's blog. I appreciate it, but I don't think anything in this will solve anything: https://www.alta.com/blog/lcc-traffic-solutions

 

[Wilhelmson]

Transportation never ends up supporting itself. The cost of public construction is too high and people balk at high fares. Billion dollar projects get pushed out 5, 10, then 20 years. The impact reports are so cumbersome half the projects never even get to a funding stage.

A better approach would be to slowly expand the transportation hub from town to town, so that in 20 years you've added 20 towns and maybe 100 miles to the network while incrementally mitigating traffic as development moves outward from the city.

 

[RachelV]

Great idea, too bad it doesn't work.

I mean, carpooling incentives haven’t worked yet because they’ve been terrible. A few weeks ago A-Basin gave out socks. Give me a break.

I think it’s worth a shot at giving people real incentives.... a free lift ticket after 5 carpools, a free season pass for the top 2 carpoolers of the season, whatever. Not socks though.

Also, this doesn’t have to be some revolutionary thing that appeals to everyone. Families won’t do this, and that’s fine. Get 2% of people carpooling, bump up bus ridership by 3%, and you’ve made a meaningful difference on crazy Saturdays.

This is at least better than the standard “add 5 rows of paid parking” zero effort solution that ski areas usually roll out, so I think it’s worth a shot, provided the incentives they provide to carpool are actually incentives, and not marketing.

 

[Mike King]

Resorts could run bus service for a reasonable cost. A season bus pass. That might make a difference.

 

[James]

Yeah we've been through the insanity of Little Cottonwood Canyon. Everyone is obsessed with their cars. It's a freakin dead end road. Where's the "freedom" in that? But, it's more convienient.

Honestly, I see pretty much the solution coming from self driving cars. You either get in one, or, the road takes control of yours. But one person to a car doesn't really work- so self driving buses? Make people pay a lot to drive up.

Roads are subsidized like crazy. Somehow, that's ok, but mass transit is some aberration. Just weird.

 

[RachelV]

Sigh. They can't possibly think this incentivizes anyone to do anything.

 

[RachelV]

They probably just didn't give all the socks away last time, so they had to do it again.