Parking Fee

[Anni8]

Was up the tram yesterday and they are now charging $5 per carload to park. Annual and seasonal passes are exempt. Not averse to the parking fee but wonder how the process will impact passage to parking lot A. I am thinking that the "pass" people may not have priority in the future and may be shuffled to a lower lot.

I got there at 9:35 and it took 10 minutes to get to the gate shack. I can see a big delay on weekends.

[cynthia23]

That's terrible! They are such freaking idiots. This is going to backfire on them big time. Their greed is boundless and their disrespect for hikers seems equally bottomless.

[Anni8]

Evidently, hikers are not profitable. We are loyal to the degree that we use the tram often, especially in Summer but, where the paying tourists are concerned, I predict we may have to use a lower lot.

[Florian]

The tramway is offering free parking for locals as well as pass holders. There is also a free drop-off and pick-up area which will be convenient for Skyline hikers getting picked up after a hike. Here is the tramway page re parking ..

http://pstramway.com/parking.html

-Florian

[Ed]

The tramway is offering free parking for locals as well as pass holders. There is also a free drop-off and pick-up area which will be convenient for Skyline hikers getting picked up after a hike. Here is the tramway page re par

I took a quick look at the tramway page. It is nice that they have a drop-off and pick-up area, but it is not clear to me from my quick look that they will waive the fee, or how that would be handled. The 10-minute time limit could also be a problem. I call my wife from the upper tram station, but I can't predict how long I will have to wait for a car down. Ok, I can walk back to PS like Doreen does. Not really, I'm not that tough.

Waiving the fee for local residents will be welcome to them, but seems discriminatory. It is also a problem for me. While I have a house in Rancho Mirage, our driver's licenses show our address in the San Diego area. Well, people with two houses are not entitled to self-pity, I know, you don't have to point that out to me.

But the biggest problem is the queue at the toll booth that Anni8 referred to above. If it is 10 minutes on a weekday, what will it be like on a weekend? I tend to agree with Cynthia.

[cynthia23]

Yeah, to me the biggest thing is not the fee (extortionist and greedy though it is) but the traffic back up and delay. In the summer it will be outrageously bad and cars will be overheating all over. This is such a bad, bad idea. Can i just say this? While its' employees are generally very kind and helpful, I hate the tram company. They are just another greedy corporate entity with its claws into public land.

[Wildhorse]

I thought the tram is governed by a state agency that hires a private company or companies to operate the tram and to run the restaurants and shops. The tram website confirms that it is governed by a state agency, but does confirm the rest. The governor, the county and the Palm Springs city council appoint the board.

My impression has been that the City and the State derive revenues from the tram. Maybe the county does too.

I think that the city council would be most vulnerable to public backlash related to this issue and could influence the tram board. I doubt that the parking changes have been made without the agency board's approval. If the changes have been made without approval, I would imagine the agency might be annoyed, as would the city council for sure.

I have also read that the public agency is exploring further development of the tram area - some kind of treehouse attraction and a type of thrill ride over the parking lot. I have also read that hikers have advocated building a trail to the tram station, but that has met with resistance from the public agency.

[Ed]

Here are some links to the PSAT governance. They come from the PSAT website, though I could not locate them from the PSAT website itself, and had to use Google.

http://www.pstramway.com/downloads/authority.pdf

http://www.pstramway.com/msjwpa.html

The curious name, Mt. San Jacinto Winter Park, comes from its original justification, winter access to an area suitable for skiing. Ski industry experts debunked that. The Sierra Club fought it, coming up with revenue forecasts that were much less optimistic and proved to be much more accurate than those of the promoters.

It is a special type of California government-linked non-profit corporation. I think you can see from the board membership that it is run by business interests. There are two types of board members, political appointees and others. All the others are identified as local business people, and I am sure the political appointees represent the same interests. Of course, they may not actually run the PSAT. It is not unusual for organizations of this type to be 'captured' - that is the term economists use - by various interests. In this case, I suspect it would be the management. There is certainly no representation for hikers, who are probably regarded by the management as a limited number of low-revenue users.

The competence of the management is a separate issue. I personally doubt they know what they are doing. For example, though we can't be sure yet, it seems likely the toll booth will be a bottleneck. If so, it would not have taken a very expensive or high-powered analysis to predict that. I am also puzzled by their plans to have a 'zip line' - is that what it is called? - in Long Valley. That's an effort to boost traffic. But it seems to me that they are already operating at close to capacity. Since I am retired, I do the trail as often on weekdays as on weekends. Even on weekdays the cars down seem to be operating at close to capacity.

[Perry]

I wonder how the math would work out (parking situation and balancing the budget) if they cut the most expensive advertising (billboards, TV/radio/newspaper ads) and relied on free and low-cost advertising such as word-of-mouth, Internet, leaving brochures at hotels, promotion from tourism agencies/organizations, and signs on city property.

[Anni8]

There was quite a bottleneck at the toll booth today as I was leaving at 1:30. I suspect most are paying tourists in the line of cars that had to be 1/4 mile down the tram road. Lots of frustration from my vantage point too.