On the second episode of our Salt Lake City series, we look into the Little Cottonwood Canyon proposed Gondola. Join us as we interview Julia Geisler, the executive director of the Salt Lake Climber's Alliance, on her organization's opposition to the UDOT project.
On the second episode of our Salt Lake City series, we look into the Little Cottonwood Canyon proposed Gondola. Join us as we interview Julia Geisler, the executive director of the Salt Lake Climber's Alliance, on her organization's opposition to the UDOT project.
Are gondolas the best solution for every traffic problem, or will big gondola ruin the pristine natural areas that we hold sacred? Find out on this episode of transit tangents.
Chris:Welcome back, everybody to transit tangents. My name is Chris.
Louis:And I'm Louis.
Chris:And today we are on our second episode from our Salt Lake City series, where we had the absolute privilege to talk to a local about the little cottonwood gondola project that is coming up.
Louis:Yeah, and I mean, this is like the first gondola episode. So Chris and I were very excited about this episode in general and talking about gondolas in general. But yeah, I think you might be surprised how this one goes,
Chris:I don't know. Are they good? Are they bad? Let's find out. Yeah. We we did have the opportunity to to talk to Julia, who is the Executive Director of the Salt Lake Climbers Alliance. The SLCA is one of the organizations who are actually on the opposition to the little cottonwood gondola project. Doing research on this, we also found out there are quite a few organizations that are against this kind of the project. And I have to say, I was a little heartbroken at first when I learned about
Louis:this. Yeah, because I mean, Chris and I are about as Pro gondola as you can get in general. Just um, we're speaking generally still. But yeah, it was an interesting conversation. And it definitely opened my eyes to kind of another way of thinking about this solution.
Chris:And to give a little bit of the background here. If you haven't watched the previous episode about Salt Lake City, please go back and watch that we do talk about how the traffic gridlock and getting in and out of these canyons is just absolutely horrendous. And the public transit options that exist today are sort of not real, not real, right? They're absolutely horrible. You sit on the bus for two hours, you get to take a nap. I guess that part's nice. If you want to hear the full story, you can watch that. It's all there. But a little overview of this project to alleviate traffic. UDOT has worked with the ski resorts and supposedly with the community to come up with solutions to improve access to the canyon. And they agreed on this phased approach for improving that access. And it starts with trying to limit the amount of traffic that's going in out of the canyon. It moves on to expanding the lanes in the canyon to include a bus going in either direction, like a dedicated bus lane. And then the third phase, which is the one that we are really getting into today that is most controversial is an eight mile long gondola that would start at the beginning of the canyon and work its way all the way up to service the Alta and Snowbird ski resorts, right.
Louis:So it's a really interesting conversation, we're going to make sure that the links to all of the organizations that we talk about are going to be linked down below so that you can go and see for yourself some of the information that they're putting out the plans dig into the details on your own. But without further ado, let's just dive right into the conversation with Julia. So we're out here in Salt Lake City. Chris and I have had a fun couple days doing some skiing. Also yesterday we did an entire day doing Salt Lake City in a day via public transit, got
Chris:to see a lot of the city and walk a lot. We walked about 10 miles in addition to miles and miles and transmissions. Yes. But
Louis:today we're very excited to be joined here by Julia. Julia is with the Salt Lake climbers, Salt Lake climbers Alliance, I should have had that one ready to go. Apologies. So thank you so much for taking the time to meet with us. First off, I guess, to give folks an idea, why has the climbers Alliance and you personally kind of gotten involved in the kind of campaign against the proposed gondola and little Cottonwood Canyon? And just kind of a little bit more information about about you and your organization?
Julia:Sure. But welcome to Salt Lake City.
Louis:Thank you. Yes,
Julia:please come back in the summertime or spring or fall and climb with us, especially in lower little Cottonwood Canyon. We'd love to drive past all those beautiful walls and come
Chris:back with our first times in Salt Lake City. Really? Yeah, we'd love to come back in the summer. And there's all kinds of rock
Julia:here, you know, spanning from the granite that you drove past to if you go to American Fork for the limestone or maple for the cobbles or winters for quartzite. So there's something for everything. So come back. Yeah, rock but yeah, thanks. Thanks for having me. My name is Julia Geisler. I'm the Executive Director of the Salt Lake climbers, lions and that's the local climate organization in and around the Wasatch front and back. And it's an advocacy stewardship nonprofit. We mostly do you know, climbing access trail where it climbing infrastructure boat replacement, we have the I think the nation's only professionally paid anchor maintenance crew here in Utah replacing bolts. And so that's been our main, you know, work as well as maintaining access and trying to preserve climbing landscapes. We've been around since 2002, over some access issues and in store mountain picnic area and Big Cottonwood Canyon, which you drove past when you went to Brighton. And we've been around ever since. And we, we advocate for access and stewardship, and,
Louis:yeah, awesome. So the kind of as you know, we're trying to transit related podcasts here. Both of us are climbers, and we could talk about climbing all day. And we do whenever we're not nerding out over like, trains and whatever it may be. But the reason we really want to talk to you is currently there is a proposal for a gondola that would essentially take folks from the bottom of little Cottonwood Canyon, up to Snowbird and Alta ski resorts at the top. To give folks a little bit of a background traffic is definitely an issue going through the canyon in the wintertime, with skiers going up and down. It's fairly clear, you may or may not disagree with me on this, I don't know it's okay either way that the current situation really isn't sustainable. And that's something better could be done. There are some folks in state government and in you know, especially the ski resorts are also pushing for this, some others as well who are who are pushing for a gondola for this solution. Lots of folks, yourself included, are advocating for other solutions. So I guess what for you are kind of the main sticking points for being against the gondola, what what kind of would you like to see as a as an alternative instead?
Julia:Sure, that's a loaded question. And it has a deep past in the Wasatch, if you look back through transit issues between the Wasatch front and back, this is not a new, new proposal or even a new problem. The solid climbers Lance is really active in little Cottonwood Canyon, because there is a beautiful climbing resource right at the base of of little cottonwood as well as all the way up to the you know, the whole length of the canyon. So our interests are in preserving that incredible landscape that you see when you enter the canyon. And the you know, in finding a solution that works for transit, that's not going to completely destroy that gorgeous landscape that's there. Because, you know, I think it's David Brower that you can advocate for a place 1000 times, but once it's, it's built upon, it's done. So we have we have, you know, one go at this if you if you destroy it, it's gone.
Chris:Right. And it seems like that area in the base of the Kenya that you're referring to, is really cherished, especially about the outdoors communities here the the climbing communities I saw on the website, there were areas that were nominated for historical status as well. Is that correct?
Julia:Yeah. So climbing is existed here in the valley, you know, a little Kotlin since the 60s and Big Cottonwood even before that. So there's a deep climbing legacy here. And it is really awesome to be able to go out there and climb on climbs that were put up in the 60s and climb the same climbs today. So there's a living legacy in this in this zone. It's a, as you mentioned, there is a nomination for the lower part of the canyon, which we call the Alvin Bock loop to be listed in the national registry for Historic Places. And I think that would be the first climbing area that's actually listed camp for and you're somebody who was nominated. And why that's important and special is because there is that legacy there that people don't know about. And without it being listed, you know, you can't really get that into the hearts and minds of a of Utahns. And making people aware that it's there. And it, it deserves to have some protection of the landscapes and that incredible resource that's there. So there, there's a deep legacy and also, as you saw, it's a minutes from Salt Lake City a growing metropolis and so many people move here because of that quick access to to recreation, not only ski resort access, but free public access, you know, to the national forest lands where that historic nomination is not you know it in little comment, right.
Louis:From from looking at it from afar initially, you know, I see oh, like as a transit nerd type person, like that sounds like a really cool project to have a gondola at first glance without really looking at it, having been here and speaking with all sorts of different folks. I definitely am not as and I obviously did did some research ahead of this. I'm not as Pro gondola as I was, I still bet like it's not a clear cut, like, oh, this would be cool. It could clearly move more people up potentially as cut and dry as it could be.
Chris:I will say hearing Lewis say that is actually a pretty big win for the anti gun. Because he's very, very progressive. We were joking on the way up here that we had to address the big green gondola in the room because we have this. We have this running theme of the podcast, which is that we want gondolas in Austin and it's just as a it's a tenability joke, it's an inside joke, just a silly thing where there's this proposal a while back of doing these urban gondolas throughout the city, because they were cheaper than trains and all this stuff. And so we actually made the logo of our of our podcast, a little gondola. Now, this was way before we decided we wanted to get that out of the way, the big green gondola in the room. And we're very, you know, just pro public transit in general. But when we, when we sat down and started talking about this project, one thing that we both, you know, admitted is you can't have if you have public transit has to serve the community, right. And it has to be community centric, community focused, community has to have the buy in and it doesn't sound like there's a lot of community buy in, especially the base of the canyon for this, this particular project, right. And we've talked to a couple of people around town about it. There's I have a friend here, who is more on the pro gondola side, but just because he hates sitting in traffic. But his one of his big gripes was the taxpayer side of it, and he doesn't want the taxpayer to pay for it, the ski resorts should pay for it. Well,
Julia:I think you said it yourself. You don't want to sit in traffic. But if you have a gondola, pumping more people up, and you also have the red snake because you can drive your car to still go skiing, right? Do you want to sit in a longer lift line? Totally right, what's the end game here? So you know it? Is it really going to alleviate traffic, I don't see how that can be if you can still drive your car to go to the ski resort because you said it yourself. Some people want to get to the resort and just go skiing and they think their car is gonna be the fastest and they will pay whatever it takes to sit in that car, right and have all their stuff with them. And then you just you start to go down the rabbit hole of what this actually would look like to get your family to go skiing and especially if you're live on the Wasatch back. So to back up, this is not a one Canyon problem. This is a
Louis:regional incident. We experienced. Yeah,
Julia:it was a regional issue that we have with transit as Salt Lake City's exploded not only Salt Lake City, but Park City is gridlocked with traffic, probably even more year round than little cottonwood is. So you know, if you're gonna do a transit solution, it has to work regionally. And it has to connect people's places where they live with where they recreate. And there is a carrying capacity, there's a carrying capacity for any natural resource. And you know, those resorts are at the top of the Forest Service, you know, and surrounded by forest service property. I think that's glossed over a lot that people think that the gondola is just going to go on a UDOT right away, like over a road, but it's actually going through national forest service land, it's going through private parcels like 140 acre lease that we have with the LDS church for for a climbing property in Laurel Canyon, it would go through there and what's happening with that property, is it going to be eminent domain to put these huge towers on. So it's, it's, it would set a precedent for UDOT, who does not do gondolas, they do roads. And let's be frank and Utah, the road construction sucks, like you're sitting in, you know, orange barrels, it's unsafe, and it's constant. And so do you want to turn that gorgeous Canyon into a UDOT road construction project that is now going into the National Forest? And you know, there is a Forest Service decision that hasn't been made on this issue yet. And that is not really talked about either. So yeah,
Louis:I'm curious on the so like, I we've seen UDOT has talked about this a little bit, as well as a couple of the different organizations kind of fighting this as well, talking about like enhanced bus services and bus lanes and things like that. I actually think that that could go a long way in doing it, if the like the right steps were taken to kind of do it, then
Chris:you're talking about adding a bus lane and more disruption to the canyon. Right. Right,
Louis:baby, which, which I'm curious like, with the enhanced bus service that they're talking about? I've seen some of them where they talk about bus lane, some of them talks about enhanced bus services, do you know any more about, like what those services could look like? Obviously, it's like, it's fairly vague when we look at some of it from bar. But I'm curious.
Julia:So we're really excited that the advocacy work that I think that the general public has the general public is not in supportive, if you look at statistics, from main newspapers to, you know, elected mayors and officials, the public is not in
Louis:support. And anecdotally, from our short trip, like more like most people that we talked to, were
Julia:not they don't think it's going to solve the problem of the traffic. So But to answer your question, we're really excited that the advocacy work did at least present some phased approaches to this whole problem. It did not present metrics that we can achieve in order for that phased approach to be shown to work or not, which is unfortunate. And in to your point of are there other ways to quote unquote, fix this traffic problem? What you know, if you think about a golf course, and you think about how many people are able to use that golf course in a day, and there's there's only so many people they allowed to have a tee time and drive the cart around and use that golf course and there's a carrying capacity and the resorts, you know, capital US society, we're unable to set that capacity, right, but it is there. And I think you're
Louis:trying to shove as many people as they can. And that's how capitalism is getting capitalism.
Julia:Yeah. And meanwhile, it's becoming terrifying on the ski resorts with people flying past that it becomes marginally unsafe. But that is not the issue at hand, the issue at hand is that you have a beautiful canyon and natural landscape, and we should do everything we can to protect it. And we have larger issues on our plate with a Great Salt Lake that we need to put our focus on as opposed to another tourism attraction that to Kenyans that already have plenty of tourism. So the solutions being you know, that National Parks use timed entry,
Louis:you know, right, especially we've seen, like Yosemite in the last couple of years is like all reservations time to entry. And it's like, it's one of those things that is, it can be less convenient for folks. But if it means protecting a, like very unique, like kind of sacred place, you know what I mean, and depending on how you're looking at things, a little inconvenience, sorry, but like, if you want to protect these resources, somebody's got to do something, because your point, you can't just keep shoving more people into it and expect it to stay the same.
Chris:And it's inconvenient. But it's also it's also a matter of you just have to plan ahead. I mean, we've run into this issue, we climb in around Thanksgiving and Red Rock Canyon outside of Vegas, and they do a very similar style of of timed injury. And that's BLM land. So it's a little different. But you know, you'd have to, you have to plan ahead, if you if you wanted to do these trips, I don't think that's a lot to ask of people. You said something earlier that I really liked, which was connecting people from where they lived, where they recreate. And I think that's an important part of the conversation too. Because as we're saying the canyon is not just for tourists getting to the ski resorts, there are so many locals who need use the Canyon for the back country skiing, that are trying to get there for climbing. They're trying to get there for hiking, hiking, birdwatching, whatever the recreational activity is. And this project really only serves, you know, to two private companies in the mountains. One thing that we saw on the website that I thought was interesting was the proposal for the toll rate or variable toll rate on the road to try to reduce the amount of traffic. I'm curious about your thoughts on that. That method of controlling traffic, when I think a lot of the advocacy groups are also trying to make sure that access to these areas is as easy and free flowing as possible, especially for people who come from disenfranchised communities. Those two ideas seem incongruent, to me the the tolling and then trying to protect it for the disenfranchised community. So I'm just curious, any thoughts on on that? Yeah,
Julia:that it's a very complicated issue, as you're pointing out, you know, I don't know if you know, little competencies, 2.1 million visitors a year, which is more than all of the mighty five national parks combined. Wow, I did not know that. I know that either. So I think, you know, we had, we had a lot of people that want to go there. But then you also have a lot of people that want to go to big Caitlyn in Park City. So you know, towns like Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park, you know, during COVID, they put in place the time to entry because their entire town was gridlock was traffic. If you go up and you talk to them, it's working, that their town is moving, people are spending more money at the coffee shop, because they know they can't get into the park until at 10. It's better for the economy, and it's better for the resource. So at a certain point, you do have a carrying capacity. You know, I think people think that the gondola will help with things like you just saw with inner Lodge and you you can't run the gondola during avalanche mitigation work. And I think as the climate crisis increases, and we have these swit like huge shifts and weather that are pretty massive events for storms, it's going to be even more more gnarly getting people in and out of that canyon. So do you want to really pump more people up there? Right? Yeah,
Chris:that's a good point. I was I was looking at, I think at the University of Utah paper this morning, actually, that was talking about avalanche risk. And that road, I think it's up to 10. Utah to to is one of the highest in the country for avalanche danger. Especially when there's there's not enough mitigation work going. That is a good point. The gondola can't run during mitigation, it can run during cleanup mitigation. But yeah, that's definitely a good point. There will be times where the gondola has to shut down and it's not going to always be running and always be the perfect solution. Right. Totally. Yeah,
Louis:in the case of this weekend, I mean, those people probably still would have been stuck there the whole time because I was just this morning seeing some of the videos that they're posting the avalanche crews were posting and it was I mean, some serious avalanche is going on throughout the entire last couple days. Yeah, and
Chris:background of that, for those who are listening or watching. We had skied in Snowbird, over the weekend. The following day, we didn't go to Snowbird because the weather and Avalanche potential on the road wasn't gonna open. But there were people who were stranded, Snowbird and alta. So when you mentioned inter Lodge and these issues in the avalanche, that's sort of what we're talking about is folks, I'm actually being stuck there because the road can't be opened and those people may still be stuck even if there is a gondola because of the avalanche mitigation. So it's a good good,
Julia:you know, think about the climbing resource, you know, to come back to that and impacts of the client to the climbing resource. I think this really is one of the largest access issues we've ever had on our plates here in Salt Lake because not only once the gondola is built, is it a blight on the landscape and you think about gondola towers constantly moving through that landscape, they're lit up at night. For an air traffic control. This is a dark Canyon usually. But you know, if you're on a very tenuous slab and lower little cottonwood and there's constant moving cars, and the buzz of that gondola moving past you, it really impacts your, your experience. And I think that's one place where you're not really failed to recognize that view shed is really important to climbers, like you're out there, because you're in that landscape. And that's really distracting to have that connection to nature within minutes of the city. And to take that away from the general population, not just climbers, but hikers and people just wanting to experience public land is is is pretty sad. So there's been talk of, you know, why does everybody have off on a Saturday? Why don't your company get people off on a Friday? And then you don't have everybody trying to access the result on a Saturday? But you know, since COVID, it seems like nobody works during the week anymore, or
Louis:they're working work during the week? Yeah, they're like, Yeah, I just need to send a couple emails from the chair. So
Julia:everybody wants to go at once. But you know, back to your red rocks scenario there, and I climb in red rocks to and if you have a reservation, you know, when you can go you know, you're gonna have a parking spot, and you probably have some sense of like, my route that you want to get on is at least maybe, right maybe doesn't have a line of 30 people deep. So you might actually have that experience. And I you know, there is a finite number of people that can be in any one area and, and recreate or do other things.
Louis:Totally. I'm curious, are you basically just for time entry restricting the amount of cars that can go up? And kind of rather than doing any widening to make a bus lane or anything like that? I'm just curious. Yeah,
Julia:sure, you know, parts of the canyon already had been widened before the bus. But I think there is so much low hanging fruit that really has not been tried. And in a concerted effort, things like two way traffic going up, timed entry, not everybody has to go skiing at nine o'clock to to ski resorts time entry going down reservation systems for parking seem to be working. And then you know, you add the electric bus you add.
Louis:So to answer your question free to test even the free or the resource can
Julia:pay to get their customers to where they want them to go. And, you know, at the end of the day, my dad managed to ski resort for 40 years back East. And he said at the beginning, he said, you know, the resource can control their tickets, they can control the flow of people coming and when they come. So if there is a concerted effort there, I think I think you'll see a real change. And again, it's not just one county that has traffic, it is a regional transit issue that needs to be figured out. And I would, I would say people with needing to get to work to and from and across this valley is more of a concern totally than it is to get people to recreate 30 minutes faster to get on the Hill to stamp longer lifeline.
Louis:I mean, I at this point, I think I'm fairly convinced that like, I'm, I'm, I'm my opinion, I'm easily swayable. Like, in general, like I if like somebody tells me that like, you know, explains that their position is definitely better. Like I, I think I'm no longer like even for this gondola. I'm serious. Again, my opinion doesn't matter. I don't live here. But like, having talked to some some different people about it. And now like hearing your perspective on it, too. You know, like for a little bit, I was kind of the two people who gave me a ride up into Big Cottonwood Canyon the other day, they were like, I could maybe be for it in a situation where where the ski resorts are paying the full cost of this because like to them, one of the sticking points was if Utah taxpayers are going to pay for this, and then Utah residents are still going to need to pay to use this gondola. Meanwhile, like, you know, it's mostly for tourists from out of town who are wealthy and have money who can afford to go skiing for the most part, like that didn't sit right with them. But if the funding mechanism changed, maybe that could be it. And that's not going to that's not going to happen, in my opinion, but like a reservation system, timed entry, something like like, there's feels like there's so many other ways you could do
Chris:this. I think we also have to take a step back as again, we're visitors to the area, we are the tourists where we are the problem. And again, that's really Yeah, but we also take a step back and and what all tourists should do, we need to to really respect the local communities as well. And I think that's a huge part of it. And the resorts have to respect the local community too. And if the local community is saying, Look, this is our canyon, our resource and we have we believe this is the capacity. Again, you have to respect it and ski resorts can do what they can to try to move more people in a way that doesn't alter the canyon or alter the the transportation system. I think that's fine. But I think it really all comes back down to respecting the local community. Yeah.
Julia:And if we have the ability to preserve a beautiful landscape that is you know why a lot of us move here then then we should do everything we can to protect that because it's it can't speak for itself. So let's try to preserve that landscape and And there are more important things to focus on like the Great Salt Lake brochure saving the Great Salt Lake. I mean, who knows if we're gonna have snow in 50 years, so let's not be short sighted with what we do to our natural landscapes. It's also a watershed issue, you know, the amount of soils that would be disrupted from this huge project. These towers are as tall as a cliff lodge in places they are massive. They're not your normal looking gondola tower at a ski resort. They're there, you know, the base of them is very massive, they have concrete posts, it cuts into the very narrow canyon and the base of those those slopes would be unstabilized. We already have a lot of mudslides and rockfall happening in the canyon. So we really need to keep as much vegetation and natural escapes as we can intact totally.
Chris:And it was also I was reading in the watershed issue as well. And I didn't see a map of it. But they alluded to a couple Superfund sites from old mining operations of leaving the canyon. And the idea of disrupting the Superfund sites and having pollutants go into the watershed was a big concern. I think it was friends a little Cottonwood Canyon, that brought up the point that the the water filtration system in the canyon is not as as robust as most water filtration systems because of the purity of the water. And they would have to also invest in massive improvements to the the water filtering infrastructure just before any project got off the ground. Yeah,
Julia:thanks for bringing that up. It is the drinking water for Salt Lake City. And you know, there are three lawsuits, one being Salt Lake City because of the watershed issue. And you know, I would come back to that this is you are taking a gondola through Forest Service property. And do you want to set that precedent across the nation? You know, there are other canyons that this could go into American Fork Canyon, it would be you know another option taking people from Provo up to snowbirds train up there. So are you going to open that door to allowing this to happen? And another landscape? I
Louis:would say even though like like again, I'm not definitely I, you've swayed me, but I think it's also not not an excuse to do nothing. And like there needs to be a lot of pressure put on the resorts and UDOT. And unfortunately, I don't know if the bullet like it seems like there is the actually I'm excited to be able to say this. I think there's some money in big gondola right now, the gondola lobby is I'm serious. It seems like there are some politicians very tied up in this. I love that I was able to mention big Gumball that was Yeah, feel free to use it. I don't even need the credit, you got it big envelope, the the political will to be able to test out timed entry to be able to test out variable toll. And you know what I mean? Try out some of these different things try out ways to improve the bus service because frankly, the bus service as it is, is not it's like there's a schedule. It's that's not real. It's just like capacity
Chris:limits and timed entry. Because if you don't solve the car problem, you're never going to improve the bus problem.
Julia:And if you don't solve your carrying capacity problem based on what the natural landscape can hold, as well as the user experience, how many people do you want to be on the hill with? Yeah, and skiing only exists? Three, four months out of the year as opposed to other your
Louis:experience is worse when you're just like standing in line. Everything gets skied out faster. Like it's Yeah, that's so to Colorado. Yeah, our trip here was horrible. Yeah. I want to give you an opportunity, if there's anything that you wanted to mention that you haven't. And if not just like where folks can learn more about, you know, your the organization you're representing, or any of the other ones feel free to Yeah, thanks.
Julia:So, yeah, so the climbers lions.org is our website and we try to keep this issue up to date, we will continue to fight for that natural landscape of little content, as well as the rest of the other climbing areas around here. And I think, even if you don't live in Utah, this really is a national issue because it will set a national precedent for UDOT to be able to have this kind of transit. I don't even know what to call it. It's not a solution, because it's not going to fix the transit problem. But to have this go through other forest, public, you know, BLM whatever it lands across the nation, so keep keep a fire, you know, keep tuned into this. Yeah, we like to recreate Yeah,
Chris:I just wanna say the big gondola if you don't win in the canyon, come to Austin and Billy gondola. Yes. Yeah,
Louis:my we're fine with you for Well, again, thank you so much to Julia for taking the time to talk to us. Yeah, that was not I wasn't planning on necessarily going into that interview being just like totally convinced that the gondola was a bad idea.
Chris:You, you changed position. Within a couple hours. We were having breakfast and talking about this and you were very like, no, the gondola is good. And then and then we got into the conversation and in there was like a sudden sudden flip which was actually really fun to
Louis:Yeah, like that reaction that I was giving out like fully. I mean, I think Chris I think I probably surprised you in the middle of the in the moment we literally like an hour before or two hours before I was like these are the points that I'm gonna like really hammer again and I did make some of the points. So one thing actually that I didn't talk about was like the safety of driving up the road in the snow regard Listen, if there's a bundle or not, it's still like a downside to the existing one. But listening to Julia talk about the fact that like, and I use this when I talk to my like kind of outdoor friends, I have a background in like the outdoor industry. That's like what I used to do, I run a small business doing that in New Hampshire, lots of friends who work in the ski industry, but also in the outdoor industry as a whole. And like loving places to death is a real thing. Yeah. And just trying to shove more people up this canyon, into the ski resorts that are no doubt less fun when you're just like standing in line all day, is loving places to death. And the last episode we lightly mentioned, like National Parks are going through the same thing like, sure, do. You want to get more people into the National Park and widen the road and the National Park and all this stuff. And then you get to a point where it's like, wow, this national park looks like a national parking lot at this point, because there are so many editing off the cuff good. So many, so many people trying to get up there and listening to Julia talk about little Cottonwood Canyon and the way that she was and how important it is, for all these, you know, hikers and climbers and all these folks, and doing all of this work to the canyon to change it. Were really the only people who benefit from this are these two privately owned ski resorts so that essentially a bunch of for the most part out of town, wealthier people can go you know, access them in the winter, is the compelling Miss of my initial argument, just kind of like goes out the window. So
Chris:I think I think our big takeaway from this is we love public transit solutions. We obviously are hugely pro gondola. Love that. But transit has to serve the community that it exists in. And if the community doesn't see value in that transit system, or they feel like it's going to further harm their community. Organizations like UDOT and other other state agencies need to listen to those communities. Right? So gondolas are great, but they're not for everybody. Right?
Louis:And I mean, again, it's like, there are still like, in in some of the proposed solutions that Juliet had, transit can still play a role in that, like buses should still play a role. But if you have timed entry, if you have a toll for you know, cars at the bottom, that cost a decent amount of money, you're going to be loosening up the amount of traffic, they're making the existing transit being a bus, a much better solution. So yeah, yeah, I really enjoyed that conversation with Julia. It was like one that I wasn't expecting to go the way that it did. But like, that's, I'm totally open to being convinced that my opinion is the wrong one. And it's not often the wrong one. But it takes
Chris:it takes a very big person to say that. More of us could admit that. Not me, but more of us could admit that.
Louis:Yes, yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you very much for watching these first two episodes from Salt Lake City, we do have one more coming up. I'm unsure as we're releasing this right now, if it's going to be the next one, or maybe the one after that. But if you're not subscribed, you want to see the third and final episode from our salt lake city trip. This last one is going to be focused on just how to see Salt Lake City in a day using only public transit. We got to ride both of the different train systems, the tracks and the front runner, we got on several buses as well, and really, like criss crossed the heck out of Salt Lake City. We also met up with Chris Ross, we met up with one of Chris's old friends, for a good chunk of the day, you get to see Chris schmooze a security guard at the Utah Capitol who led us and after they closed, it was a it was a fun day in general, I was exhausted at the end.
Chris:So stay tuned for that also huge thank you to everyone who did contribute to this episode, Julia in Salt Lake climbers Alliance, also to all the organizations that we maybe haven't talked to, but have put all of the information out there and have very clearly made their points in opposition and to this project. Again, all of that will be linked. So please go and take a look. And you can choose whether or not to support these, these organizations. But with that, make sure that you are if you're joining the podcast that you are liking on YouTube subscribing, if you are listening to the podcast on Spotify, Apple, Google whatever. Also make sure that you are giving us a rating preferably in the five star range. That would be fantastic except the four but preferably in the five four is unacceptable. You can also set up like auto downloads and stuff like that if
Louis:you want to make sure that you know our podcast gets delivered to your phone. Go ahead and set up that auto downloading good way to do it. So don't forget
Chris:and make sure that you're sharing it with your friends on social media. You can go to our website, transit tangents.com. You we have Instagram Tik Tok. We're everywhere
Louis:so yep, formerly known as Twitter.
Chris:Yeah, we don't talk about that one. But we are everywhere.
Louis:I use that one a lot.
Chris:Yeah, so get out there share our content. We would absolutely love to see it. Give us comments talk to us. If you want us to come do a story in your city like how to see your city in a day. Give us give us some choices to choose from.
Louis:Maybe we'll come in you can show us around. Awesome. Thank you all so much.
Julia:I guess if you want to go ride a gondola ride the tram at Snowbird and yeah,