Management last year rolled out parking fees, carpooling incentives and bus service improvements — but it may not be doing enough.

By Kate Kampner

Rush hour is no joke during Stowe’s ski season. Cars can stretch for miles up to Stowe Mountain Resort, fueling a persistent parking problem that’s left locals fuming. The resort’s response? Telling people to carpool or take the bus. 

Management last year rolled out parking fees, carpooling incentives and bus service improvements — but it may not be doing enough. 

“For those of us who have lived here for a very long time, it’s not been good,” said Margaret Dananberg, director of Women of Winter, an all women’s ski club in Stowe, where she’s lived since 1987. “We’ve watched the mountain change over a good long period of time.”

As a result, both the town and the resort are working with the Vermont Agency of Transportation to improve road safety and capacity but not at the expense of aesthetics. 

“We don’t want a state highway going up and down the road,” Charles Safford, the Stowe town manager, said. “People come not just to ski, but because of the beauty.” 

‘A major effort’

Last ski season the resort instituted parking fees for the first time, a move met with consternation from locals, according to VTDigger. Currently, all parking at the resort is free except from Friday through Sunday and on holidays, where a $30 fee is charged in the Mansfield and Midway lots. 

The resort incentivises guests to carpool by offering free parking “at all times in all lots” for cars carrying four passengers or more, according to its website.

The changes were designed to get people to reconsider how they travel and to reduce road congestion, said Matt Lillas, the resort’s director of operations. 

“The community has generally been supportive, knowing that the program is intended to reduce vehicles on the Mountain Road/Route 108 during peak times,”  Lillas wrote in an email. 

Lillas said last year, 43% of guest vehicles qualified for free parking under the carpool policy. And the resort tracked more than 93,000 individual rides taken on the free Mountain Road Shuttle, operated by Green Mountain Transit.

“This was a major effort made by our guests to participate in the program.” Lillas said. He said a study by the resort estimates the changes removed around 11,000 vehicles traveling to the mountain per season. 

Safford acknowledged changes needed to be made because the traffic doesn’t just impact skiers but locals, too.

“It also makes it challenging for the community to get around and do their essential business,” he said.

Safford said the congestion seems to have reduced compared to recent years, likening the mountain shuttle improvements to a sort of “valet service,” plucking skiers from their hotels and dropping them at the main lifts. 

Dananberg acknowledged the bus system has improved but wouldn’t go so far as to say the improvements solve the overcrowding. She noted that driving around the resort isn’t as safe as it should be. 

“I don’t think that they’ve really found a great solution yet,” she said.

A new approach

Amy Bell — the policy, planning and research director for the Agency of Transportation — said a variety of work is being done on Route 108 to help with traffic and general transportation concerns. She noted the area around Smugglers Notch is home to threatened and endangered species “that were being adversely impacted.” 

One study will look to improve the intersection on Luce Hill and Route 108 by measures like adding a new traffic light, she said.  

Bell said the agency also has been working with the town to collect data on traffic movements using anonymous GPS readings obtained from personal devices, navigation and computer systems and toll transponders like E-ZPass. 

“That gives us a lot more information about seasonal patterns of traffic along the waterway corridor,” she said.

The resort proposed a new development that would potentially include reconfiguring the lots and adding parking, but engineers at the Agency of Transportation said there was no way to tell if adding parking spaces would reduce the traffic and congestion — or make it worse, Bell said. 

“There’s a good chance (parking) could potentially increase,” she said, “if you’re adding more spaces, more people could drive their personal vehicle rather than take the shuttle.” 

Ultimately, said Bell, officials need to wrangle with more than just motor vehicles.

“It’s not just about cars and vehicles,” she said. “They need to be looking at, ‘How do we incentivize people (into) arriving at the resort a different way?’” 

The Community News Service is a program in which University of Vermont students work with professional editors to provide content for local news outlets at no cost.