Reducing Traffic to Ski Areas -- RIDE

[James]

The socks are expensive. Like $24.
So, if they gave everyone a $20 bill, would it work better?

 

[mdf]

Public transport has to work really well to get people, i.e. me, out of their cars. I'm not going to drive to the mountain in Aspen or Jackson Hole, and usually won't have a car at all. Other mountains, not so much.

 

[Tricia]

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

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They'd be better off giving out a free lunch coupon.

 

[Scruffy]

Steamboat has excellent free bus service all over the city and including up to the mountain. A bus comes every 10-12 minutes, and there's various lines that go all over the city. Stayed there a week this season, in a condo off mountain. Never waited more than a few min. for the bus near our condo. End of day, buses always seemed to be at the mountain waiting to load up when we were done. Never over crowded. By comparison, Jackson Hole bus service charges, and you wait longer for a more crowed bus.

 

[Mike King]

The socks are expensive. Like $24.
So, if they gave everyone a $20 bill, would it work better?

Of course it would. First of all, the ski area probably spends nothing on the socks because of advertising from the manufacturer, but even if they do, they are paying wholesale, not retail. Second, those socks are worth $24 to people who want them, but not everyone in the car wants them. To find the people who value them at $24, those who do not have to engage in a search, and that has costs, both real (transaction fees on eBay, for example) as well as the value of your time and the hassle of doing so. So, the incentive of goods is worth less, probably much less, than giving cold hard cash that can be exchanged for what the recipient most wants.

Mike

 

[Sibhusky]

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

The town and the resort have that here. No pass needed, it's free. The trouble is, it doesn't run often enough. And, for me at least, the closest stop where I can leave the car all day is barely closer than the resort, and in the opposite direction. But it is used, and heavily during holiday periods.

 

[Kneale Brownson]

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

When Everett Kircher started Boyne Mtn. In Michigan, he operated a weekend bus service that picked up skiers at Detroit and took them back. He even drove the bus himself. That's typical of why his company became Boyne USA.

 

[Mike King]

The town and the resort have that here. No pass needed, it's free. The trouble is, it doesn't run often enough. And, for me at least, the closest stop where I can leave the car all day is barely closer than the resort, and in the opposite direction. But it is used, and heavily during holiday periods.

It's not like you have a problem with the amount of the traffic trying to get from Spokane to Whitefish...

Mike