Arapahoe Basin Ski Area on Saturday will roll out its new carpool and parking plan, which will slightly change parking options for guests during weekends and holidays for the rest of the skiing and riding season.
Beginning Saturday, the easternmost 200 spaces in the ski area’s Early Riser Lot — the spaces nearest A-Basin’s Mountain Goat Plaza base area – will be free for vehicles with four-or-more people. Any other vehicles will be charged $20. These parking spot account for about 10 percent of A-Basin’s parking.
“We have a total of 1,950 parking spaces,” A-Basin chief operating officer Alan Henceroth said in a post on his blog on Tuesday evening, “and 1,750 of them will not be impacted by the new plan.”
“Most of us realize that parking can be a challenge on busy days,” Henceroth also said in the blog post. “There really isn’t room to expand parking at A-Basin, but by increasing bus ridership and getting more people to carpool, we can definitely make an impact on parking. While we have been rewarding carpooling for a few years now, the new plan does even more to address our challenges.
Henceroth also said that the ski area already requires its employees on weekends to carpool, ride the Summit Stage buses or to catch the employee shuttle from the Tango Lot four miles away.
“No doubt a few people will be upset with us,” Henceroth said. “Our real objective is not to make money from pay parking. Our real objective is to get everyone that wants to visit A-Basin a chance to visit A-Basin. Getting turned away is no fun.”