If you’ve never been to Whistler on a wintry weekend, you could be forgiven for not knowing the frustration of sitting in traffic snaking out of town before trying to find a parking spot amongst the throngs.
But for weekend warriors, locals, and frequent visitors to the ski town, congested traffic and competitive parking has become part of the Whistler experience on a weekend powder day. Whistler Blackcomb’s (WB) trial carpooling program is trying to improve the experience. The program is part of a parking study the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) required of WB for council to approval WB’s Fitzsimmons Express upgrade.
Visitors arriving with four or more people are given priority parking at P1 in Creekside garage and at Upper Lot 7 at Blackcomb Base II on weekends, statutory holidays and peak periods from 6 to 11 a.m. Pique stopped by P7 to observe and learn about the process Dec. 28. With snow continually falling, a steady stream of drivers passed P7 to P8 to get a spot before the non-carpool option filled up. By 8 a.m., P6 was already full, and P8 was reaching capacity.
The carpool lot, on the other hand, was far from packed. Drivers with vehicles holding four or more people pulled up to attendants with smiles and skis, easily finding a place to park. Vehicles with fewer passengers were turned away, decidedly less excited. Before the trial carpool program, the lot would have filled up just as quickly, according to Kate Roddick, senior director of operations and business development at WB.
“Here we are on Saturday, Dec. 28 in the middle of our festive season, on a snowy powder day, and the guests that are pulling in are able to park right up here in Lot 7, or they're pulling into P1 in Creekside, and able to make their way to the lift easily and relatively effortlessly,” she said. “On this kind of day when you've got all these factors, we'd already be full in Lot 7 (without the carpool program).”
Roddick said the idea for carpooling came as a suggestion from a workshop WB held and from a survey sent to a targeted selection of guests, including residents in the Sea to Sky, visitors from Washington, and frequent regional visitors.
Survey respondents were positive about carpooling if it provided priority parking, and from there, WB's operations team began looking at where they would implement the trial and created communications on their website, in news and social media, and highway signage.
As part of the parking study, WB has been collecting data on the number of cars in lots, turnover, persons per vehicle, and vehicle flow, and combining it with data collected by the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW).
“What’s critical is in overlaying that with a lot of the data that the RMOW has been collecting through their transportation advisory groups, through their Big Moves action plan and making sure that anything that we're observing, we're layering into those observations as well to look holistically at what our parking and arrivals and utilization is across Whistler,” Roddick said.
The RMOW’s Transportation Action Plan Monitoring Results from 2022 showed the average occupancy was lowest during morning peak periods at 1.37 persons per vehicle, and highest on weekends at 1.94 persons per vehicle.
The low passenger numbers are also contributing to Whistler’s biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, with personal vehicles making up 54 per cent of Whistler’s total emissions, according to the RMOW’s Climate Action Big Moves strategy.
“We really want to work collaboratively and collectively with our community to increase occupancy," Roddick said. "And if we can get, on average, to a 2.5 occupancy, we will reduce congestion by close to 25 to 30 per cent."
Carpooling at two Vail Resorts-owned properties, Heavenly and Northstar in California, has seen success. Of the reservations available in lots with the carpool incentive, Vail Resorts said 65 per cent of guests at Heavenly and 62 per cent at Northstar carpooled for free parking. They also reported increased guest satisfaction and big reductions for traffic congestion.
Some feedback on the choice to have four people qualify for priority parking, over, say, three, has been negative. But Roddick noted a minimum of four people per vehicle is the gold standard for carpooling to reduce congestion.
Since it’s a trial, Roddick said they’ve tried to incorporate feedback and adjust where appropriate.
“We certainly understand that sometimes we all need a little bit of extra support or consideration or compassion," she said. "We do try to help where we can, and we also want to ensure that we're maintaining the integrity of the program, so that it works in the way that it is intended.”
