Private Vehicles (900 vph x 2.5 avg people)
PPH: 2250 | █████████████████████

Current Buses (20 buses x 42 people)
PPH: 840   | ████████

Additional Buses (70 buses x 42 people)
PPH: 2940 | ████████████████████████████

Combined Current (Private Vehicles + Current Buses)
PPH: 3090 | █████████████████████████████

Combined Enhanced (Private Vehicles + Additional Buses)

PPH: 5190 | ██████████████████████████████████████████████████

Gondola (30 Cabins x 35 Max Capacity)
PPH: 1050 | █████████

Gondola (30 Cabins x 25 Capacity w/ ski gear)
PPH: 750 | ██████

COST PROJECTIONS & IMPACT CALCULATIONS

Escalating Costs of the Little Cottonwood Canyon Gondola: A Timeline of Waste Leading to $2B+ by Construction Start—Time to Stop This Boondoggle

The proposed gondola's costs have skyrocketed from initial estimates, driven by UDOT's underestimations, inflation, overruns, contractor-driven bloat and hidden expenses (e.g., litigation, environmental mitigation, land acquisition, and annual O&M). Figures based on EIS extrapolations.

Official UDOT estimates start at $955 million for construction, but with annual operations at up to $21.7 million and a 50-year lifespan, the total balloons to ~$2 billion or more. This doesn't account for further escalations from inflation (10%–32% since 2022), lawsuits delaying implementation, or hidden costs like watershed risks affecting 400,000+ residents.

The projected $2B total is for a 2040 anticipated construction start (per UDOT's phased timeline—Phase 1 buses by 2025, gondola in Phase 3, 20-30 years out), factoring in 5-7% annual escalation seen in similar projects and current estimates already hitting $1.4B.

Breaking Down the $2B Calculation: Escalated Costs and Lifetime Projections

Here's the structured math based on verified data:

Capital Costs (Phased Implementation):

$955.4 million total (Phase 1: $150M tolling/buses; Phase 2: $260M snow sheds/buses; Phase 3: $545M gondola/base station). Critics cite up to $1.4B with 20% contingencies and market escalations (e.g., 32% hike from 2020 to 2022).

Annual Operations & Maintenance:

$21.7 million (winter ops, energy, labor, reserves—higher in phased scenarios with buses).

Some sources note $4M–$10.6M for Gondola B alone, but full project ops (including phased buses) push it to $21.7M.

Lifetime Total (50 Years):

Capital $1B (mid-range escalated) + Ops ($21.7M × 50 = $1.085B) = ~$2.085B. Over 30 years (UDOT's analysis period): ~$1.6B undiscounted nominal.

These figures do not include overruns, as seen in similar UDOT projects (e.g., 25%+ escalations in infrastructure).

The Utah Legislature has appropriated $393.7 million from 2017 to FY25 for Cottonwood Canyons transportation improvements (including gondola planning/EIS), primarily from increased taxes on food and fuel.

This represents committed funds, much of which has been spent on studies, consulting (e.g., HDR's role in cost escalations), legal defenses, and early phases—fueling the $2B boondoggle.

While dismissing alternatives like buses ($510M total) or plows ($300K each) could solve issues affordably.

This underscores misuse of taxpayer dollars (~$337 per Utah household for these appropriations alone);

UDOT’s own draft contract for the Little Cottonwood gondola openly uses a cost-plus-percentage-of-cost structure – the exact contract type that has been illegal on federal-aid projects for over 40 years (23 U.S.C. §112; 23 CFR §172.9) because it literally pays the contractor a percentage of everything they spend, rewarding them for driving costs higher.

UDOT refuses to set a real guaranteed maximum price until design is 60–90% complete, long after the contractor has locked in huge profits.