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SALT LAKE CITY — While its service will remain somewhat muted over staffing shortages, officials at Utah's largest transit agency say they believe they will be able to offer "enhanced" ski bus service this season with the help of agreements with resorts and Salt Lake County officials.
It comes as the county announced that it will crack down on illegal parking in the canyon, which was also an issue last winter during what became a record-breaking year for Utah's resorts.
Ski bus changes tackle Cottonwood Canyons challenges
Despite improvements to Utah Transit Authority's employee shortages, which led to it cutting its ski bus service in half last year, the agency still doesn't have enough employees to cover ski bus routes without making cuts to normal services, said Eric Callison, UTA's manager of service planning.
As such, its seasonal ski bus service, set to begin on Nov. 26, will technically remain about 40% to 50% of what it was two winters ago. However, UTA officials say they have made several minor changes through a pair of agreements that can potentially increase ridership capacity and cover a large chunk of the service gap.
The first agreement is with Alta, Brighton, Snowbird and Solitude resorts. UTA will supply the four resorts with a van pool transportation option that resorts will operate solely for resort employees, said UTA spokesman Carl Arky. Since employees can account for about half of ski bus service ridership at times, this change could free up about half of a bus for skiers and snowboarders to use instead.
The agency also worked with the resorts to improve the efficiency of getting buses into and out of their parking lots. This, Arky says, can help the buses move faster and potentially tack on additional trips to carry more passengers.
"It sounds like a small thing ... but (with) some of the resorts, just getting in and out of the parking lot takes a lot of time," he told KSL.com on Monday. "That creates inefficiency and it leads to fewer trips that we're able to provide up and down the canyon."
UTA officials add they plan to send out "backup buses" — when available — during high-traffic demand and other peak ridership periods.
The second agreement is with Visit Salt Lake and Salt Lake County as it rolls out Cottonwood Connect for another season.
County officials helped launch the seasonal service in January to pick up some of the routes lost when UTA cut its ski bus service in half. The service, which utilized a fleet of mini-coaches and large passenger vans, ultimately brought in a little more than 9,000 riders over its 12 weekends of service.
Cottonwood Connect will run in coordination with UTA's ski bus service this year and not midway through the season, Callison said.
Callison adds that UTA's ski bus service to resorts in Davis, Utah and Weber counties, which wasn't altered too much last winter, will look about the same this winter. And although this season's ski bus service will wrap up on April 13, 2024, work is also ongoing to repair the employee shortage ahead of the 2024-25 season.
"Our staffing situation is definitely improving," he said. "We do feel like we will be able to turn it around. We're not to the point where we'd like to be at yet, but we do have some capacity for surge that maybe we didn't have last year."
Canyon fine increases
Last winter produced all sorts of traffic headaches beyond public transportation, as outdoor recreation enthusiasts raced into the canyons to take advantage of the record snowfall that fell over the season. This includes people who illegally parked in the canyons, which led to at least one ski bus crash and concerns involving emergency vehicle access.
Salt Lake County officials say they are enacting new fines in an effort to improve traffic flow and safety in Big Cottonwood Canyon and Little Cottonwood Canyon.
County officials approved a new ordinance that increases the cost of a parking violation from $25 to a range between $75 and $150 beginning on Nov. 1. Violations include anyone who parks outside of the white line within either canyon, as well as parking in no-parking zones or parking in an avalanche zone.
Parking is still allowed in designated areas," officials wrote in a Facebook post last week, adding that there are no changes to where people can legally park this winter.
Some resorts in the Cottonwood Canyons received more than 900 inches of snowfall during the last snow season, which shattered previous records. Ski Utah reported that there were a record 7.1 million skier visits throughout the season at all 15 resorts across the state.
