# Why not weekend bus service to ski areas?



## basil (Nov 20, 2005)

Why isn't there weekend bus service from the Front Range to Keystone, Breck, Vail, Copper, & Winter Park? 

You would think that there are enough skiiers for buses to run every 15 minutes. The bus would drop you right at the slope. People would probably be happy to pay $20 for this, which should pay for it. 

This should clear up the traffic and parking problems.


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## Snowhere (Feb 21, 2008)

I do not think busses are long term solutions. With the current trends, if you take some ski traffic away by getting them into busses, there are plenty more who will fill in and the end result is still the gridlock that we see today. I think the only real solution is something that does not roll on the highway, I.E. train, light rail, monorail is the only way to go. Such trains can wizz past traffic giving those stuck in traffic some incentive to take the train next time. Plus when an accident closes the highway, trains can keep rolling. I know it is not the cheapest, but it is the price we will have to pay for the last 30 years of shortsightedness of the general populace.


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## basil (Nov 20, 2005)

I think you could make it attractive for 50% of the people to take buses. Drop off closer to the slopes, make parking expensive, comfy buses, etc. 

I assume the word has gotten out with how expensive a train or monorail would be. 2 billion dollars probably doesn't mean that much, but if you try to recover costs with only rider fees, the fee would probably be $200-$400 a ride. If riders don't pay that, who?


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## Porkchop (Sep 19, 2007)

I think we need some toll booths. I'm not sure where and how much but if people can buy an epic pass and an suv they should be able to afford $5 t $10 for use of the road. Maybe higher tolls during higher use times and taking all the money to invest in a sustainable solution.


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## Snowhere (Feb 21, 2008)

It would not be viable if rail cost in the hundreds. There is no non-subsidized transportation. Maintaining roads is massively expensive. Instead of trying to add a lane every ten years too late, the money would go to rail cost instead. It has worked in Europe for decades, so it can work here. We have to think, will any particular 'solution' still be viable in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years..... Nothing short of an alternative to pavement will work into the future. Any stopgap type of solution will just be a bandaid, not a true solution. 

Don't get me wrong, buses do need to be in the solution, and can be mobilized quickly, but they will not succeed if we do not do something bigger that will not need pavement.


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## basil (Nov 20, 2005)

Swiss & Austrian rail isn't a good comparison. In Europe they have longer, broader valleys, which is much easier/cheaper to build rail in. In the tough places they did build rail, it was generally built to connect two very major cities. Rail in the alps weren't built for the purpose of skiing, except perhaps Zermatt, and that's only a few miles. 

Rail would be sweet, but unless we really jack up taxes, I don't see how it can be paid for. And there's better stuff to spend the money on. 

I like the idea of tolls, but is it legal to put a toll on I-70? It's a federal public road. It may take an act of congress. 

Why won't busses work for 10-20 years?????


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## benpetri (Jul 2, 2004)

Tolls are bullshit, and probably illegal anyway because its a federal highway. If they did collect tolls, the money would probably just disappear in the federal DOT budget anyway, and be used to build bridges in Alaska.

And think about it. Who's getting taxed the most with tollways? It's the locals who have to use the freeway everyday, and never needed 6 lanes in the first place. If it was just locals using the roads, they would have been served just fine by the original 2 lane highway. Its only front rangers and tourists who create the jam, and only front rangers and tourists who bitch and whine about it too. The cost burden of any solution really should be carried by fairly them, and a tollway won't do that. 

I favor the train in the long run. Probably won't cost any more than adding lanes, and is definately more energy efficient in a world where energy costs are only going to rise.


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## Rich (Sep 14, 2006)

Big advantage of buses is that we could start today. A rail or monorail is 
10 years of massive construction (and traffic delays) before the first passenger.

There already is all the infrastructure in place for rail to MaryJane and Winter Park, but we only have a train the runs part of the season, weekends only and is priced as an expensive tourist attraction.
What we need is an affordable ski train that goes to DIA, Stapleton, Downtown and a Boulder stop at highway 93.


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## Geezer (Oct 14, 2003)

They used to do that from Dave Cook's Sporting Goods stores quite some time ago. Didn't seem to go over very well and they got canceled because they could not make a profit. Sheit... that was back in the 70's!


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## Jason Cox (Sep 16, 2004)

*Ski Train*

Do some research, Winter Park has had a ski train come to the mountain on the weekend for the last 50 years


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## Jason Cox (Sep 16, 2004)

*Portland uses buses*

Have you ever been to Portland, OR. They have buses that run you up to the mountain a few times a day.


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## sarahkonamojo (May 20, 2004)

Buses from Boulder also make it to Eldora.

To work the buses would need to be more like a shuttle. Leave frequently from an accessible location. And be cheap.


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## freexbiker (Jul 18, 2005)

Jason Cox said:


> Do some research, Winter Park has had a ski train come to the mountain on the weekend for the last 50 years


 Already been mentioned bud...


> There already is all the infrastructure in place for rail to MaryJane and Winter Park, but we only have a train the runs part of the season, weekends only and is priced as an expensive tourist attraction.


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## basil (Nov 20, 2005)

Yea, I've taken the ski train. It costs >$59 and takes 2 hours & 15 minutes. You have to board the train at 7:15 to arrive at 9:30am. It takes me 60 minutes to drive to the train and find parking and get on board, so the total trip time is >3 hours. It only goes 50 miles, so the average speed is about 21 miles an hour--painfully slow. 

The fact that 750 people take the train every Saturday & every Sunday despite the cost and time suggests that buses will work.


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## SummitAP (Jun 23, 2007)

Long run, by which I mean right now, we need more lanes AND/OR a train. So we should ALREADY be drilling a third bore for the tunnels even though we haven't figured out what we are building. Why we haven't started baffles me.



basil said:


> I think you could make it attractive for 50% of the people to take buses. Drop off closer to the slopes, *make parking expensive,* comfy buses, etc.


Hey, I'm all about busses, but careful there. Some of us live up here. Don't screw us with artificial parking fees meant to force you front rangers onto busses.


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## Matty (May 13, 2004)

If you're really all about busses, why aren't you taking the Summit Stage (free) to the slopes? Thus eliminating the parking fee?


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## cma (Dec 19, 2003)

If buses were profitable it would be happening.. There are ton of private bus companies, some of them have even tried bus service from places like Ft Collins and other places only for them to discontinue service due to costs. The same holds true for the monorail, I have seen estimates by backers that would suggest that it would be $50-$60 each way, then you would have to get off in Frisco and transfer to a bus to get to the actual resort, how many people would really be interested in doing this? I would guess that alot of people would say that they would do it but very few would actually take it once it was running.

The ski train would be way more atractive if they had a stop in Rollinsville so that you could just drive up the canyon and use the train for the last 15 miles to WinterPark. This would leave you with about a 30 minute train ride and would be completely utilitarian rather than a "Scenic Outing". The other thing about the ski train that would make it more atractive would be if you could buy overnight tickets. Go up Sat morning and come back Sun night but I don't think the capacity on the train would allow for this.

I think they should have taken the money they spent on redoing Berthoud pass and put it towards building a new tunnel parallel to the Moffat tunnel so that anyone going to WinterPark, Grand Lake, Kremmling and Steamboat would be completely off of I70 all together. They have tunnels in Europe that are well over the distance that would be needed to go through the Rollins Pass area. You would also have the option of either taking either 119 or 72 to Rollinsville and then a short drive through a tunnel.

Then after that they could expand 285 all the way through so that now you would have 3 main arteries for getting anywhere to the mountains.


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## Jason Cox (Sep 16, 2004)

*must of missed it*

the train does bring over 700 hundred people on saturday and another 700 on sunday during the time the ski train runs.


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## phillersk (Apr 24, 2006)

A rail system has been voted on and defeated a couple times, a full study has finally been approved:
I-70 high-speed rail feasibility study in works : Traffic : The Rocky Mountain News

Now this is a little out there, but I guess It could work...
http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/big/I-70MTNC.pdf


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## benpetri (Jul 2, 2004)

The ski train doesn't work well because there's only one a day, its on a track built at the turn of the century, which means slow tight turns and steep grades, and given all of the coal trains that run the same track, they probably can't even add a second train due to scheduling. 

I think the public would warm up to the monorail idea with some better discussion of the pro vs. cons, especially stacked up against the other alternatives. The whole reason for using monorail is that it would avoid many of the extremely expensive and difficult issues with widening the highway, because most of it could be built within the existing right-of-way. It would just be elevated above the road in the really tight areas like the Georgetown Hill or the canyon reaches. If you wanted to add two lanes in areas like that, you'd have the blast so much rock and build such massive retaining walls that you'd easily match or surpass the cost of a train. Plus there's a lot of private property in Georgetown and Idaho Springs that would have to be condemned and compensated, and the locals will battle you to the death.


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## kozmonot (Jun 2, 2005)

*Virtual Trains*

WHat we have here is a failure to communicate...between cars, cars in the future will act like virtual trains .Train tracks are obselete, and static systems like train tracks break.Virtual train tracks don't break and when something like a rockfall happens, all the cars can go around it because they communicated. We need to let go of driving and let computers optimize this cluster%&$, when you get to wherever, you can drive and be an idiot..
but on the highway....going straight and acting like a train anyway, be a train made of cars, not really connected but virtually connected.
I think these auto companies should be forced to think outside the box and we should reinvent the transportation systems. 
New train tracks , where? In the river bed thats where... no thanks. 
Virtual trains on the highways using existing roads , existing satellites, existing technology , existing cars even. Let go, the software is all we need. Until then, I'd gladly ride the bus if there was one.


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## caspermike (Mar 9, 2007)

good idea. not! are you going to put invisible tracks to all the put in across the US? doubt it.


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## kozmonot (Jun 2, 2005)

*caspermike: it's already done but thats not the point*

The roads and routes have already been digitized, but that's not the point. On the highways, where we are all going the same speed , the same direction etc etc. computers could do a better job ie; get us there sooner by optimizing all the variables and taking 100,000 dumasses out of the equation. 
For example, when we're all stopped because of something, rather than the first guy going , then then next guy going but putting his brake on then the third guy finally wakes up , etc. The whole group could move as one, and when you get to your dirt road, or your hometown, you bow out of the virtual train and proceed to wherever.. and you can bring your dog and your kayak. This is a software problem.... and I'm not talking about computers ,I'm talking about the human brain allowing this to happen.


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## kevintee (May 7, 2007)

kozmonot said:


> The roads and routes have already been digitized, but that's not the point. On the highways, where we are all going the same speed , the same direction etc etc. computers could do a better job ie; get us there sooner by optimizing all the variables and taking 100,000 dumasses out of the equation.
> For example, when we're all stopped because of something, rather than the first guy going , then then next guy going but putting his brake on then the third guy finally wakes up , etc. The whole group could move as one, and when you get to your dirt road, or your hometown, you bow out of the virtual train and proceed to wherever.. and you can bring your dog and your kayak. This is a software problem.... and I'm not talking about computers ,I'm talking about the human brain allowing this to happen.


This has been in development for several years. I remember seeing a thing on the History Channel about it, must have been 3 or 4 years ago I saw this.


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