4 Comments

I find it interesting how much Beth Howard is focused on the Eagle Bahn replacement; certainly, it's a very clear signal that Vail Resorts does not see the West Lionshead portal happening anytime soon, maybe not even for a few more decades. (Why add a brand-new gondola to the current Lionshead portal now if West Lionshead would be coming online in the not-too-distant future?) I had forgotten how old Eagle Bahn is getting, though — it debuted the season of my first visit to Vail, if my math is correct! I can't help wondering if they're also extra cautious with this lift, given the 1976 catastrophe on the old Lionshead Gondola and (what I would guess is) Vail's desire to avoid any questions about whether this gondola remains safe.

Expand full comment

Regardless of the style of urban planning, what the town of Vail can't do, or any other mountain town with a ski resort, and hell, for a matter of fact, the rest of American cities and states shouldn't do, is simply NOT BUILD.

I've seen the end product of never building. It's called the state of Oregon, my home state I grew up in and ended up getting gentrified out of at the age of 20. A state that tons of people have been moving to until recently. In Oregon, there aren't enough apartments, there aren't enough condominiums, there aren't enough multiplexes, there aren't enough mobile home parks, hell, there aren't enough single family homes! City and state planning commissions prevent practically any housing development irregardless of density, in the name of controlling "urban sprawl." News flash: If a city/state is growing, the footprint of human development will grow too. Everyone except for the rich feels like they're drowning in bills and struggling to make ends meet in Oregon. Portland Oregon's public transit system has little to no impact on the metropolitan area car traffic, because everyone who isn't filthy rich has been gentrified to the outskirts where there is little to no transit service into the city. Countless people commute to Portland from Salem and Albany (amongst other mid-Willamette Valley cities and towns), 50+ miles away. Yet the folks behind urban planning for Portland are dead set on it maintaining the same city footprint as it did in the 1980's when there were a MILLION less people in the metropolitan area, not to mention how much less populated the rest of the Willamette Valley was back then. It's not just a Portland issue, but an Oregon-wide issue.

I'm just using Oregon as an example because I'm extremely familiar with the state and its issues, but this NIMBY urban planning plagues countless other communities across America and Canada. It's not the old head NIMBYs who live in an old farmhouse and are grouchy that their home town has grown a bit, it's city, state and federal level NIMBYism issue. We have a nationwide housing shortage that has long predated Covid-19, so it has nothing to do with supply chains and housing materials, in fact we live in an era where houses can be quickly fabricated in a factory or outright 3D printed! So there is absolutely no excuse for North America's housing crisis other than NIMBYism, as we're seeing here with the town of Vail.

The seeds for this issue were planted 40-ish years ago when we thought it would be a great idea to stifle town, city and infrastructure growth even as the population continued to soar skyward, and now we're paying the price, and will continue to pay the price until we stop this city, state and federal NIMBYism. And maybe I'll sound a little Free Market Bro here, but if the market had the heavy hand in deciding where houses and businesses went, then you'd see way more businesses and community centers pop up near where people actually live, and vice versa, housing come to the areas where people work, it's what happened in the past. Notice how the older neighborhoods that predated modern urban planning NIMBYism actually have businesses smack dab in the middle of them, oftentimes right next to other houses and apartments?

To reiterate, I'm not stating how exactly towns and cities should be developed, whether they're dense and transit oriented or more spread out and automobile dependent should all be handled on a case to case basis, as there are great arguments for both styles of urban planning & development. But what we can't do is simply succumb to NIMBYism and not do a damn thing at all.

Expand full comment

Kudos to Big Buck Bighorns and eight thousand square foot pied au montagne. FFFFing ridiculous. F Scott was right, the rich are diffent: they buy town councils, judges, congress etc. The ultimate revenge would be to slip some laxative in the Big Horn diet. May the Poo Poo be with you!

Expand full comment