ALTA SKI AREA, Utah — Alta Ski Area is concerned after one of its three bus stops was removed as UTA continues experiencing staffing shortages.
This comes after the bus adjustment for Little Cottonwood Canyon. UTA says they are experiencing staffing shortages and hiring challenges like other businesses and transit agencies across the nation.
In late September, Utah Transit Authority announced significant changes coming to bus service routes across their entire system.
“UTA has found themselves in a situation where they can’t hire enough drivers and they’re cutting back on their bus service system-wide," said Mike Maughan, General Manager and President of Alta Ski Area. “But the ski service is taking a much harder hit.”
UTA announced the suspension of certain routes, including 953 which services Midvale to/from Alta. The changes will take effect on December 11, 2022.
“We’ve been informed by UTA also that they’re no longer going to service the Goldminer’s bus stop which is used by about 50 percent of riders that come to Alta," said Maughan. “It’s kind of disheartening that this type of a change would come in at the last minute, you know the eleventh hour.”
Maughan predicts the changes will impact roughly 85% of Alta patrons who use ski bus services.
“We just found out a few weeks ago that they intended to no longer service this bus stop which has been serviced for over 40 years by UTA with a variety of different sizes of busses," said Maughan. “You know, for years we’ve been trying to build up bus service and providing locker space for people to come and to be able to justify riding the bus and now it’s just like the rug is being pulled out from underneath them.”
Maughan is mainly concerned with the skiers who use the bus service. He mentioned that UTA will be using longer buses to try and make up for the cutbacks in services.
“It’s a huge step backward and I mean I get where UTA’s coming from and I get the staffing challenges, I get all that stuff," said Brian Harris of Murray, who has used ski bus services for the past decade. He not only has taken the bus to Snowbird and Alta, but to Powder Mountain and other areas outside of the Salt Lake Valley.
“But tearing out Goldminers, oh that hurts bad," said Harris when he learned about the bus stop no longer being used at Goldminers Lodge. "Collins and Wildcat are the centers of the universe like nothing else matters."
UTA cites safety concerns when it comes to the Goldminers bus stop. It also could be logistics with larger buses.
"There has not been any willingness to make a change," said Maughan about minimal dialogue with UTA. "I think they’ve made up their mind this is what they’re doing.”
