SALT LAKE CITY — Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons can be packed with traffic, especially on powder days, leaving people stuck in their cars for hours.
UDOT is conducting a study to try and figure out how to reduce some of that congestion in Little Cottonwood Canyon.
In the study, they are looking at several different ways to reduce the number of cars coming up the canyon and they’re also asking the public for input.
“Looking at different transit options including rail, seeing if rail what the implications of having rail go up and down the canyon. Also enhanced bus service - what would happen with different levels of bus service, as well as gondola or aerial systems,” said John Thomas, the project manager for UDOT.
Aerial transportation is just one of the options. They’re looking at gondolas, Funifors, funitels and aerial tramways. They would move people up and down the canyon and possibly even between canyons.
“It’s going to be a couple years before we finished our environmental impact statement and as we go through the public process of presenting alternatives to the public and getting comments and reviewing those it’ll be a couple years before we have a document available,” said Thomas.
UDOT says is still in the very early stages of gathering information.
Andria Huskinson with Alta says all the congestion in the canyon can be frustrating and they’re looking forward to a solution.
“We support UDOT studying that right now and we’re definitely in support of that because we may see that maybe the gondola is something or maybe just more buses up the canyon or having people ride buses instead so we’re in support of the research going into that,” said Huskinson.
UDOT says if you have a suggestion you can visit udot.utah.gov/littlecottonwoodeis
