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http://deseretnews.c...0199314,00.html
Tunnels for skiers?
By Ray Grass
Deseret Morning News
Someday, in the distant future, skiers coming to Utah may be able to drive from Alta to Brighton in minutes instead of an hour, or head straight from Snowbird to Park City over a scenic route instead of a busy freeway.
These ideas and more are certain to be among the main talking points of a Nov. 3 meeting called by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. to discuss transportation issues related to Utah's growing ski industry.
Other topics will no doubt be those reviewed back in 1990 during site evaluations for the 2002 Olympics.
They include:
• Paving Guardsman Pass Road between Park City and Big Cottonwood Canyon.
• Digging tunnels from Brighton to Alta, linking Big and Little Cottonwood canyons; from Brighton to Snake Creek, linking Heber and the two canyons; from Salt Lake Valley to Snowbird; from Solitude to Iron Mountain in Park City; and from Salt Lake Valley to Snowbird to Solitude to Iron Mountain.
• Installing cableways from Brighton to Park City and from Snowbird to Park City.
• And installing a monorail or cog rail in the tunnels.
The proposed links were included in a study done to review transportation issues during the Olympics. Those same winter transportation issues could face Utah in the future.
Over the past four ski seasons, Utah's skier visits have increased from 3 million to 4 million.
Nathan Rafferty, president of Ski Utah, said consensus is that "the state of Utah (is wise) to be looking down the road. What we don't want is to find ourselves in the same position resorts in other states currently face with respect to transportation problems."
Colorado, for example, which hosts close to 12 million skiers a year, has one major access route — I-70 — to a dozen of its major ski resorts.
There was some confusion on Monday with respect to the upcoming meeting. Telemark News released a story and an agenda on "UT Governor's Office Secret Talking Points."
"The problem is," said Mike Mower, Huntsman's spokesman, "I have not seen an agenda, and this one did not come from our office. We've been asked to facilitate a discussion with people interested in (transportation) concepts, and we agreed in order to learn more."
The agenda suggested an AltaBright Tunnel that would tie Big and Little Cottonwood canyons together between Alta and Brighton. And a CottonPark Interconnect that would involve a tunnel or turning Guardsman Pass into a year-round road between Brighton and Park City. The two plans would connect Snowbird, Alta, Brighton, Solitude, Park City Mountain Resort, Deer Valley and The Canyons.
Lisa Smith, director of Save Our Canyons, said her group would have some concerns over work in the canyons.
"Our first concern is for the watershed. We recognize there will be growth, and we need to do everything possible to protect the watershed," she said.
Alexis Kelner, also with Save Our Canyons, said he was on the committee back in 1990, "and we have the same concerns now that we had back then. One of those is what their plans would be for dealing with the muck or debris they pull out of the tunnel? There will be tons of muck. And what debris will this release into the watershed?"
Onno Wieringa, general manager/president of Alta, said it is good to revisit the subject.
"Talk of an interconnect tunnel has been going on for a long time. This is just another flurry, but it's good to see what new technology is available, to see what works and see what problems can be solved. There are lots of transportation issues. Skiing is just one," he said.
Bob Bonar, president/CEO of Snowbird, said, "As skier days in Utah grow, it's important to look to the future and to be prepared. It makes sense to research the possibility of efficient, environmentally friendly ways to address potential transportation issues similar to those that already exist in other states. The canyons around the Wasatch Front do see busy days at times, so this discussion is a step towards mitigating existing and future traffic problems."
Lorraine Januzelli, public affairs officer with the Wasatch-Cache National Forest, said some of the same issues looked at in 1990 will also be addressed now. These include mitigating effects created by increased traffic, an increase in staff, reviewing permit systems "and, of course, water quality."
Roughly 80 percent of the water supply for the Salt Lake Valley comes from the two canyons.
There are, in fact, old mining tunnels connecting Big and Little Cottonwood canyons. In the winter, to avoid avalanche danger, carriers used the mining shafts to travel between canyons to deliver main and goods.
But, as Mower said, despite the fact that the mysterious agenda calls for an action committee to "study and implement," this meeting is simply to look at future transportation issues.
Other article from Salt Lake Tribume:
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_4504038
Plan would link Wasatch ski resorts
Tunnels, snow sheds'25 most influential people' will meet in the governor's office
By Patty Henetz
and Mike Gorrell
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated:10/17/2006 12:32:08 AM MDT
If Utah's ski resorts ever tripled the number of skiers they see each year, they'd tie Colorado's 2005-2006 record - and likely be suffering the same kind of transportation gridlock resort-bound motorists regularly endure on Interstate 70's Rocky Mountain traverse.
That's according to a memo circulated to the "25 most influential people in government, tourism and the ski industry," who will meet Nov. 3 with Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. at the Capitol.
The meeting was arranged at the request of Sen. Carlene Walker to brainstorm the latest proposal to link Big and Little Cottonwood canyons with Park City: tunnels and roads with snow sheds to connect Snowbird, Alta, Solitude, Brighton, Park City Mountain Resort, The Canyons and Deer Valley.
Such a scheme would allow skiers to drive between mountaintop resorts instead of up and down canyon roads or Interstate 80, already subject to heavy traffic.
Walker, a Cottonwood Heights Republican, member of the Senate transportation committee and proponent of private investment in toll roads, was on vacation Monday and unavailable for an interview. But Huntsman spokesman Mike Mower said the governor had nothing to do with creating the talking points and said it was "premature to have this agenda that said the governor is open to reviewing this proposal."
The memo came from the office of Jeff Holt, vice president of Goldman Sachs' San
Francisco office and a frequent contributor to Utah transportation and project finance discussions. It says the projects, dubbed the AltaBright Tunnel and CottonPark Interconnect, would tie the seven resorts in the tri-canyon area "into one 7-resort Megaplex."
"It will be possible to drive from any one resort to any other in less than 20 minutes," the memo says, adding the project would allow Utah "to seriously challenge Colorado for total resort experience . . .. This type of grouping and packaging mimics Swiss/Italian Alps models."
Ski Utah President Nathan Rafferty said the ski industry didn't propose the meeting, but welcomed it as a way to plan ahead to avoid the kind of problems Colorado is having getting skiers to Vail, Aspen, Breckenridge and other resorts along the serpentine I-70.
"They're saying, 'Are we going to widen the freeway or build a monorail or some kind of train?' They're already way behind," Rafferty said. "We cannot afford to pretend our population isn't growing and the number of visitors to our resorts isn't increasing. Those canyons [Big Cottonwood and Little Cottonwood] can hold only a finite amount of traffic."
Ski Utah reported 4 million "skier days" for this past winter, an all-time record. A recent University of Utah study said the ski industry contributes $811 million a year in direct spending annually to the state's economy.
A memo sent to those invited to the meeting says Utah could see 6 million skier days. The memo doesn't identify a source for the estimate; Rafferty said it wasn't Ski Utah.
But based on that estimate, the memo goes on to say the tunnels are the preferred method of adding skier capacity and reducing diesel emissions by 40 percent - another unsourced number.
The single-bore tunnel between Alta and Brighton would cost $250 million or less, according to the memo. The Guardsman Pass seasonal road could be protected by snow sheds or a tunnel could be bored under it for $50 million to $150 million. Tolls, special finance districts and federal dollars would be the revenue and funding sources.
Utah Department of Transportation spokeswoman Bethany Eller said the agency's deputy director, Carlos Braceras, will attend the Nov. 3 meeting. However, UDOT hasn't been asked to do any engineering and has no money to offer the project. "It's just an idea right now," Eller said.
But not a new one. The idea is "nothing that hasn't happened lots of times before in the last 20 or 30 or 40 years, said Alta General Manager Onno Wieringa.
Save Our Canyons board member, historian and author Alexis Kelner said the proposal as presented in the memo was another in a list of resort-interconnect schemes "that would destroy the character of each individual little resort."
In 1945, Kelner said, there was a road planned between Alta and Brighton over Catherine Pass. In the 1960s, when he worked for the Salt Lake City water department, there was a proposal to dig a tunnel between Alta and Brighton.
The tunnel idea resurfaced during the mid-1980s when Kelner served on the Olympics feasibility committee. He recalled crashing a meeting called by then-Salt Lake City Mayor Ted Wilson to review a proposal to dig a tunnel that would connect to the ski areas via vertical elevators.
Lisa Smith, executive director of the environmental advocacy group Save Our Canyons, says the group would rather not increase canyon capacity.
"The Wasatch-Cache National Forest is one of the most heavily used in the country," she said. Boring tunnels and building roads would put pressure on the critical watershed. Besides, she said, "the last thing we would want the Wasatch to be identified with is a 'megaplex.' "
Rafferty agreed. "We don't feel that terminology is good. That's not advantageous to us. We have seven resorts that want to maintain distinct personalities. One big resort is not the aim."
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This post has been edited by Skiing#1: 17 October 2006 - 05:55 AM
