Take the gondola to Ketchum, Sun ValleySun Valley gets $38 million bid on new transportation system
By SUSAN BAILEYK
Wood River Journal
Sun Valley-The first time Sun Valley Co. General Manager Wally Huffman publicly mentioned a gondola to transport skiers from Sun Valley Village to the ski hill as part of the master plan for Earl Holding's resort properties, a few people in the audience sniggered.
They might still be sniggering but Huffman has moved the idea of a gondola as transportation to the next phase, teamed with board members of Mountain Rides Transportation Authority.
“There's a lot of excitement in the community about it,” said Joan Lamb, a Mountain Rides board of directors member.
With Sun Valley Co.'s favorite planner Design Workshop as consultant to the project, one of the two gondola manufacturers, Doppelmayr, has priced a Ketchum-Sun Valley around-town gondola at $38 million. The other, Poma, has yet to be consulted.
Either way, the gondola has taken a leap toward becoming a transportation system reality. Even the route, initially envisioned as heading from Sun Valley Village over Dollar Mountain to River Run, has changed. Now the gondola isn't just the baby of Sun Valley Co., it's a form of transportation that will eliminate the need for cars.
Huffman said he expects to capture drivers on their way into town by building a large parking garage at River Run where the resort owns more than 30 acres of land at the base of Bald Mountain Ski Area.
“That's the only way it would work,” he said. “Then they leave their cars and don't use them again here.”
With gondola cars running every few minutes from River Run to either Sun Valley Village, downtown Ketchum by Giacobbi Square or the Simplot lot at Second and Fourth, nobody would need an automobile.
“It's not like you have to sit and wait for the bus,” said Lamb. “Gondola cars come by every couple minutes. It's got more cachet than a bus, so people would want to ride it.”
Mountain Rides board chair Peter Everett has been a fan of the gondola from the beginning because there's no need to overcome the idea that it's transportation for poor people.
“Poor people ride the bus,” Everett said, “and it's hard to overcome that prejudice.”
Gondolas, on the other hand, are European and upscale. They are already successfully transporting people in the Western ski resorts of Breckenridge and Telluride in Colorado.
One of the first problems encountered by the gondola as proposed by Huffman was resistance by private landowners along the gondola route. With the recent cooperation of the cities of Ketchum and Sun Valley, that's been taken out of the picture.
“We've got it all on private property or city rights-of-way so it really could happen,” said Huffman.
Lately, nobody at work on the project is laughing.
“It's a pretty unique situation here,” said Lamb. “We have no real right-of-way issues.”
Exit the first stumbling block, and enter the next one.
While the price tag is huge, it isn't far removed from the cost of building highways, something Everett says only encourages more cars on the road. Keeping this in mind, transportation experts think a gondola could really happen in Sun Valley, even at a rough guess of $38 million to construct and an estimated $2 million a year to operate.
“It hasn't stopped anyone from looking at it,” said Jason Miller, executive director of Mountain Rides. “People are still interested in it. Sun Valley Co. is, the city of Sun Valley is, Mountain Rides is.”
The transportation company bills itself as a one-stop transportation service in favor of alternatives to the automobile. Mountain Rides operates the Bellevue to Sun Valley commuter bus, the around town Sun Valley and Ketchum buses, and van pools and ride sharing services.
Miller said he thought Doppelmayr, the company that built most of the chair lifts running on Bald Mountain and Dollar Mountain, might have bid high to prevent Sun Valley Co. from having any illusions about cost.
The price is now the problem, since where to put gondola towers has been solved.
“It's all about cost and who's willing to pay for it,” said Lamb. “Wally was willing to spend some Sun Valley Co. money studying this to find out if it makes sense. Will it be built? I think it would depend on whether Sun Valley is willing to make a substantial investment.”
Huffman said in his mind, the issue is whether the cities and Mountain Rides can come up with enough money to be partners.
“Because we're not doing this alone,” Huffman said.
Still, miracles have happened in Sun Valley.
Lamb pointed to the White Clouds Golf Course, Sun Valley Club and the Sun Valley Pavilion as prime examples.
“Wally's excited about it and Wally was excited about golf and we got a new golf course,” said Lamb. “No doubt these are big ideas but we had a big idea that's now sitting in our midst.”
Since other big ideas have become reality, she argues, maybe the gondola can be built.
“Look at our symphony pavilion,” Lamb said. “Who would have thought we'd have something like that in our community, yet there it is. So I think the gondola is in the realm of possibility.”
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