Amid Parking Controversy, Eldora Offers Free RTD Bus Tickets

NEDERLAND, CO -- Eldora is offering free RTD bus tickets those who venture up to the resort on peak visitation days, but it hasn't helped — formerly-loyal visitors are crying foul over a parking fee change and threatening to take their pricey IKON passes to other resorts. Effective this Saturday, Eldora will begin charging non-carpooling visitors a brand new $20 fee to park on those same peak days, and many longtime visitors appear to not find a free bus ride to be a fair swap.

"Your new parking policy is outrageous, especially to implement during the season after people have already bought their passes and have no recourse," wrote one patron on Eldora's Facebook page. "A completely absurd way to make extra money off of the backs of the people who have supported the mountain for years."

For its part, Eldora has explained that the move is partly to ease congestion concerns due to population growth throughout the Front Range, and partly to discourage single-occupancy vehicle trips to the resort as a part of its new environmental initiatives. Cars with three or more occupants can park for free any day, and also receive free priority parking in the lot. Although local Eldora passholders are exempt from the fee, IKON passholders, whose multi-resort pass choice bought them access to resorts like Steamboat, Aspen, or Winter Park in addition to Eldora, do not.

According to Eldora's website, a percentage of parking fees will go to Interstate Parking Company of Colorado, which is administering the program. The rest will either be reinvested into programs like parking lot expansion, paving projects, increased parking staff, or donated to resource-conservation projects at the resort.

Critics of the program have had no trouble coming up with possible pitfalls. Some questioned whether the once-an-hour, 60-seat RTD N bus which also serves the town of Nederland, would be able to handle an influx of customers. Others pointed out that they didn't live near the bus route, or that they wanted to ski with their child. One questioned whether the equipment lockers in the Eldora lodge would be free to customers who no longer had a car to store their items.

"Please know that our ideal outcome would be to make no money on this initiative and instead see 3+ in every car, parking for free, allowing better peak-day access for everyone," an Eldora representative wrote to upset customers in a post on Saturday.

According to Eldora's currently posted policy, cars with fewer than three passengers — unless they are driven by an exempt Eldora passholder — will be required to pay a $20 fee to park on weekend, holidays, and to-be-determined, high-visitation days based upon the weather. The fees will be in effect from Dec. 15 through April 14.

An earlier version of this article noted that a portion of the fee proceeds would go to Protect Our Winters, as was reported on the Eldora Mountain Resort website. Representatives from the organization indicated that they had not heard anything about such a donation from Eldora. We regret the error.

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