COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS, Utah — It wouldn’t be a day of fresh powder in Utah without traffic.
“It gets to be hours waiting in the canyon, which is crazy for how small a canyon it is,” said Risa Nelson.
Many skiers try to do their part to reduce congestion and take the free ski bus.
“Thirty minutes, it’d arrive late sometimes,” said Johnny Chambless. “If I'm trying to meet friends, I would just end up driving up the canyon, which I didn't always feel great about.”
“I've had to stand in the aisle most of the time,” said Nelson. “I think I've only gotten a seat once.”
UTA’s ski bus service in Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons will run from November 26 until April 13. For the second year in a row, buses will come every 30 minutes throughout the day, a decrease in service from when they used to run every 15 minutes.
“Still an operator shortage,” said Carl Arky with UTA. “We're still battling that. It's getting better. We're doing a better job of recruiting and retaining operators, but we're still not quite back yet to the place where we can go and put more buses and more routes out there.”
UTA has made some improvements this year though: extra buses will be deployed during busy times, like holiday weekends and powder days. UTA is also partnering with resorts to offer vanpool for employees.
“That's going to take more of their employees off the buses,” said Arky. “That creates more space, more capacity, more room for skiers.”
However, skiers think UTA should be doing more to hire drivers, considering the demand for the ski bus.
“I can't imagine with as many people that are moving to Salt Lake City, like myself, that they wouldn't be able to find operators if they were offering competitive incentives,” said Chambless.
Resorts like Brighton and Solitude now requiring parking reservations will incentivize people to take the bus or carpool, said Arky.
“It cuts down on the congestion, it cuts down on the air pollution,” he said. “It just makes things work so much better up and down the canyons, which are congested, and everybody knows that. It's a problem.”
UTA’s goal is to hire enough drivers to run ski buses every fifteen minutes again next season.
