‘The Red Snake:’ The traffic nightmare that plagues the Cottonwoods isn’t an easy problem to solve
SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — On a good day, it takes minutes to drive up the Cottonwood Canyons to many of Utah’s major ski resorts. But on a bad day, you might be eaten up by … ‘the red snake.’
Of course, the ‘red snake’ of legend is the sea of brake lights motorists can see as they’re stranded in traffic trying to get up the mountain.
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“Been in the snake for three hours almost,” skier Spencer Grant told ABC4.com. “That was the worst ever. Not good.”
Alta Ski Area President Mike Maughan said that can be the norm for travelers on the best of days. But when it starts to know, the traffic capacity of the roads leading up to the resort shrinks drastically. State Road 210, for instance, starts with the capacity for 1,200 vehicles per hour.
“We go from 1,200 to 600 and all of a sudden, two to 300 and that’s when we get congestion,” said Maughan.
Utah Department of Transportation Cottonwood Canyons Project Manager Devin Weder said as many as 6,000 cars or more can be trying to get to the ski resorts on a busy winter day.
Turned away
But for some, a long traffic nightmare is just the start. Imagine being stuck in traffic for three hours only to have to turn around and return the way you came without skiing at all. Alta Ski Area Communications Manager Andria Huckinson said a full parking lot can mean Alta’s staff may even have to turn people away.
“I personally was out on the road turning cars around,” said Huckinson. “They’d been in traffic, you know, two-and-a-half hours trying to get up here and then I’d half to turn them around. It was not a fun job.”
Huckinson said Alta’s parking reservation system is helping to avoid some of that frustration, and while it’s not perfect, it’s constantly being tweaked to try to get the best outcomes for travelers.
“I love it, honestly,” said skier Max Morris.
“It’s slimmed down the crowds a little bit,” said Grant. “It’s definitely helped on the weekends.”
Huckinson said people can now cancel their reservation without penalty if they do it before 8 a.m. on the day they were scheduled to arrive.
But wait, it gets worse
Weder explained that Little Cottonwood Canyon has the highest avalanche danger in North America, having more avalanche paths and more occurrences than any road on the continent. That often leads UDOT to close the road for hours and even days at a time.
Weder also said drivers often complain about inaccurate estimated drive times to get up to the resorts.
“When you see that it could take 18 minutes to get up there when you leave your house, but when you get to the canyon, you’re seeing that it’s a 40-minute travel time or an 80-minute travel time, because not only were you leaving your house, but everyone was leaving their house and you’re all meeting up at the bottom of the canyon,” said Weder.
Weder said mass transit is going to be the answer to the problem, which will not only make the trip up the mountains more reliable but will also reduce the pollution of having thousands of cars make the trip.
“There’s about 12,000 pounds of CO2 equivalent emissions produced per year at current traffic levels and that’s about equivalent to 28 million miles driven by a passenger car in a year,” said Weder.
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Weder said a three-phase plan is in effect to help solve the problem, the first of which includes access to buses. The hope is to eventually reduce traffic by up to 30%.
Ski Utah Communications Director Alison Palmintere said Visit Salt Lake offers the Cottonwood Connects shuttles, which she said are a great option for people staying at the base of the canyon.
Also in the state’s plan: the controversial gondola in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Though many residents are not in favor of the gondola, officials say it’s a mode of transportation is can still be used in avalanche-risk conditions.
But in the end, traffic in the Cottonwoods isn’t a simple problem to solve, and it likely won’t be tackled by just one solution or even one agency.
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