Gondis are in general not the solution to transportation needs. They work in Europe for access from valley base stations but even then intent is usually that there will be a WROD to ski back down. The only place I can think offhand that a gondi duplicates a road is Verbier but even then the gondi runs straight thru to higher moubtain ski access and provides a ski link to Bruson.
If a LCC gondi project goes ahead remember it's not about skiers - it's about year round tourism & casual visitation.
I disagree on both points. The modern 3S technology has enough capacity and reliability to provide reliable transportation in many medium sized cities as a supplement to their existing (limited) mass transit. Mostly in South and Central America. Dopp and Poma both see this as their main source of revenue in the future. It can surely "work" for a LCC transit solution.
Second I've heard the argument it would boost tourism. I don't see it. The core tourism demographic Utah attracts is outdoor recreators. People who come to hike/bike/ski our mountains rather than take a sightseeing gondola. Snowbird runs Peruvian and the Tram in the summer. That's more than enough supply for the current sightseeing/chairlift demand in the canyon. Alta does not run any sightseeing lift ops (but to be fair they have the summer road and running a sightseeing lift wouldn't really be their MO).
In the eyes of transparency, I am anti-road expansion, anti-gondola. I made 140 round trips in LCC last season. Of those 280 one-way excursions, I'd say 80% were under 30 minutes in the canyon. 15% were 30-60 minutes. There were very few hour+ one-ways, longest being a 2.5hr downhill in late December. I'm fine with those numbers. I'd rather keep the powder fresher and the access continues to be challenging than add thousands of more people on the hill on the weather-challenged days when the snow is the best.
I don't think so drastic changes need to be made. Parking reservations made a huge help.
My incremental plan would be-
-eliminate all free parking at Snowbird on weekends
-return of the Alta Express bus
-traffic lights at Snowbird Entry 1 and 2 (picture the freeway traffic lights that limit on-ramp traffic at peak times).
-UTA ski bus has to be free or significantly cheaper ($5 per way, per person, is not sustainable for a family of 4+).
-enforced ticketing of traction law on snow days. No reason this can't happen when we're all parked waiting to go up the canyon in the AM during avi control work.
In the event that still isn't enough (I believe it would be), there is still no reason for LCC to be a 4 lane highway. 3 lanes with the center lane being reversible going uphill in the AM and downhill in the PM would be more than enough capacity at a fraction of the cost as 4 lanes given 30%ish of the canyon is already 3 lanes.
