Transportation
While many urban areas around the world have beautiful mountain backdrops, few rival what we have here along the Wasatch Front and Back. The Wasatch Mountains provide recreation opportunities, clean water, and much more to three metro areas with a combined population of around 2.8 million.
The juxtaposition of this growing population next to world-renowned trails and ski areas presents an interesting challenge – how do you get so many people up and down the mountain each day? Mountain roads are already dangerous when empty and dry, adding thousands of cars and a foot of snow on the weekend is a recipe for accidents and the subsequent red snake that clogs up the flow of traffic.
Over recent years as daily skier visit counts have exploded, in part thanks to corporatization of resorts and the mega-passes that come with them, this issue is no longer isolated to powder days and weekends.
Impacts of this congestion are wide-ranging, presenting challenges to water quality, air quality, recreation access, and communities in and near the canyons. Though transportation issues affect communities on all sides of the Wasatch, they are especially present in the Central Wasatch Mountains.
Transportation Principles
While some proposed transportation options can more efficiently get people to their mountain destinations than current systems, there is more to it than just packing more people into the mountains.
We believe that the best transportation option for the Central Wasatch:
- Provides equitable, year-round service to Little Cottonwood, Big Cottonwood, and Millcreek Canyons
- Services both trailheads and resorts at regular, predictable frequencies
- Integrates seamlessly into regional transit networks
- Follows an adaptive management framework to grow based on rigorous metrics and real-life conditions
- Is scalable and fiscally responsible with taxpayer dollars
- Significantly reduces personal vehicle trips, along with related water and air quality concerns
- Has robust support from communities in and near the canyons
- Limits infrastructure developments within the canyons to the absolute minimum needed to achieve these goals
Though these principles are primarily directed to issues in the Central Wasatch, they apply to many areas throughout the range.
The Work Ahead
Save Our Canyons works in good faith on transportation policy and planning processes that impact the Wasatch. When it counts, we activate our members to do the same. When these processes, and, as a result, outcomes, seek to balance conservation values with other interests, these processes can benefit us all. The ongoing Big Cottonwood Canyon (BCC) Environmental Assessment (EA), conducted by the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT), is one example of this. Click here to learn more and read our public comment on it.
Unfortunately, next door, the Little Cottonwood Canyon (LCC) Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process, also conducted by UDOT, heavily favored politically-connected private development interests in the outcome. This resulted in a proposal for a gondola in the canyon that went against nearly every one of our transportation principles. Click here to learn more about this issue, our pending litigation and contribute to legal fees.
Fortunately, embedded within the flawed LCC EIS Record of Decision (ROD) are some short-term transportation plans that are aligned with our values, closely mirroring the plans for BCC. Though we remain strongly opposed to UDOT’s long-term plan for LCC, we are working in good faith to advance common-sense transit changes in both LCC and BCC. Click here to read canyon transit plan updates.
As these short and mid-term plans are advancing in LCC and BCC, we will continue advocating for our transportation principles, and keep you engaged on how you can do the same. We see a world where frequent, reliable buses and shuttles service users throughout the seasons and lengths of both canyons, along with Millcreek. After years of gridlock (pun intended), both canyons are now on a path toward real, near-term transit improvements built around buses, tolling, and mobility hubs. The gondola question in LCC remains alive in federal court, but its construction, if it ever happens, is decades away. The conservation community is largely united: get buses running, connect them to the regional network, make them year-round, and then evaluate whether any further infrastructure is actually needed. The 2034 Winter Olympics loom as a critical forcing function, putting added urgency on delivering a canyon transit system that actually works.
