InTheNews from HIGHWAY page 1
address them. … The second round of input was voting on those strategies in terms of sense of priority, what we thought would work and an opportunity to comment.” Every participant was given a comment card to vote for their preferred solution. Michael Gorton, project manager at the architecture firm HDR, said while traffic along U.S. 180 is unavoidable, their goal is to mitigate the safety and time issues that come up during the busy winter season. “There’s no getting around the fact that on peak weekends, there’s going to be a lot of traffic,” Gorton said. “The real question we’ve tried to address is, ‘How do you manage that?’ ‘What are some solutions that we can implement that will move traffic through the corridor faster and reduce the duration of congestion?’ It’s been the biggest point of concern for the people living in the neighborhoods along the corridor. These three hour backups are just not acceptable.” The study leaders took a list of over 100 solutions and trimmed it down to 12 more developed ones. Strategies range from nearterm solutions—such as a traveler information system—to midterm ones including dispersed snow play sites, and the more long-term possibilities like a bypass route linking to I-40. Wessel said they want to look at the simple solutions before settling with a long-term
project. “The near-term strategies are really the low-hanging fruit,” Wessel said. “These are things that are simple to implement, that are lower cost, that could be implemented without a lot of coordination or planning, that have minimal impact on the community or the environment.” The meeting was made up almost entirely of people living in the 180 corridor. While the audience responded pleasantly to most of the near-term strategies, the large majority were advocates for both the bypass lane to be installed and for the Wing Mountain snow play area to be shut down. Ethan Blasius, a homeowner along the 180 corridor, said he would like to see the snow play area be shut down because of the massive amount of traffic buildup it causes. “I think for the near-term solution, they should close the snow play area,” Blasius said. “It is my understanding the Forest Service didn’t go through the proper procedure of impact before of that traffic, so I’d like to see what the Forest Service has to say about that.” In addition, Blasius said he hopes to one day see a bypass road cut to the I-40. “Long-term would be an alternate route,” Blasius said. “Granted, I don’t want to see another road go through Baderville, but I think that would probably be the best long-term solution.” Jimmy Nunn, a resident on U.S. 180 and a retired architect who was on a planning committee for Snowbowl, said the topic
of winter traffic has been in consideration since the creation of the ski resort. “I was a chairman on the Fort Valley Planning Committee, which was a committee that met for five years and did the master planning for the valley out there, and we talked about the traffic and the traffic congestion in those days, too,” Nunn said. “So, I’m familiar with the problem.” In fact, Nunn said some previous Snowbowl owners hoped to make the park even bigger than what it is today. “We’ve had so many different owners and each owner had different projections and dreams,” Nunn said. “Some of them—I remember doing plans years ago—of the ski area going clear up to the saddle of Agassiz and Humphreys, and chairlifts inside the Inner Basin.” However, he believes being located in a national forest puts limits on the resort size. “If we were in Colorado, that’s what would happen,” Nunn said. “But you got other problems when you get that many people and you’re not going to have that happen in the Coconino Forest.” Nunn said he believes it will take multiple strategies to thin the traffic along U.S. 180. “It’s going to take a combination of them,” Nunn said. “They only park 3,000 cars up at the ski area and when that’s full, people don’t like it very well when they drive all the way up there and there’s no place to park, and they have to turn around and go home. And all they wanted to do in the first place is go in and get that cup of coffee.”
Proposed Strategies for Traffic Mitigation on U.S. 180 Near-term:
Mid-term:
LONG-Term:
— Early Departure incentives — Traffic signal timing — Traffic signing plan — traveler information system
— Dispersed snow play sites — managed lane — transit SHUTTLES — U.s. 180 Winter recreation parking pass
— Alternate route to I-40 — cable propelled transit — intersection improvements — widen u.s. 180
Nov. 23 - Nov. 30, 2011 | The Lumberjack 5