Industry News
In a proposed plan to alleviate traffic concerns, construction of a new village space, and installation of a new gondola in the Snow Park base of Deer Valley, Utah, Park City special planning held another meeting on October 30, to discuss further plans for reconstruction of the area. This was the continuation of their meeting on October 9, which laid the groundwork for the major transformation of the new resort base. The meeting agenda addressed three main points. Plans to install a three-level parking garage and transit center, transform the new allotted space to include another resort hotel and residencies and build a new gondola connecting the Snow Park base to the Silver Star area of Deer Valley.
- Related: Deer Valley Resort, UT, Plans Major New Gondola Infrastructure That Will Transform Base Area
Park City has become a model for public transit, and a large portion of the meeting was spent discussing how to remedy the traffic concerns coming up Deer Valley Drive, the main access road to the resort from Park City proper. One of the main talking points was a proposed shared management lane, allowing for a bus-only lane to encourage using the free bus system that networks throughout all of Park City. The loop around the Snow Park base is currently a bi-directional, two-lane road with a biker lane on the shoulder. The new proposal would rework the traffic lanes to a three-lane, single-direction travel road to go counter-clockwise around the pond to keep the flow of traffic constant.
A major feature of the plan would be the installation of the new three-layer parking garage, which would include 1,900 parking spaces (divided among day skier parking and private commercial parking), an internal transit system allowing buses, shuttles, and day skier cars to flow through seamlessly, and access to the new gondola. Currently, Snow Park has five surface parking lots that extend from the lodge entrance to the pond that sits in the middle of the loop. The garage would allow for more vertical use of the space and open up the area to more tourist infrastructure, including a new hotel and more resident/visitor condos in the surrounding area.
With the acquisition of the new East Village (formerly Mayflower), the gondola will be an exciting addition to the Deer Valley lift system. Currently, Snow Park has access to three lifts. Snowflake (the bunny hill access lift), Carpenter, which accesses the north-facing slopes that lead back to the base, and Silver Lake Express which serves as a commuter to the Silver Lake base. Silver Lake acts as a checkpoint to all other lift bases in Deer Valley which can sometimes make the Silver Lake Express lift feel a bit redundant. It’s a lift to more lifts rather than direct access to slopes (except for one green run which connects all the lifts leading to Mt. Baldy). The new gondola will be a nice improvement for skiers as it will provide access straight from Snow Park to East Village for immediate access to skiing, rather than a two, sometimes three, lift trip.
There’s still a lot of planning to be done. Naturally, there are concerns about the reconstruction from the surrounding residents in the area who find that the new plan has some flaws with the traffic flow, however, most issues are minor and would require minimal changes to the plan to resolve them.
