Front Page  news  state

Friday, October 24, 2008

Gondola Instead of Highway?

By Dan Boyd
Journal Capitol Bureau
       A touch of the Alps in southern New Mexico?
    It could happen if the cash-strapped New Mexico Department of Transportation revives an idea to build a $30 million gondola system to carry people to the base of Ski Apache.
    However, the idea of using public money for a venture that would largely benefit a private enterprise, the Mescalero Apache-owned ski resort northwest of Ruidoso, could raise objections.
    With the state highway that runs to the base of Ski Apache in need of an upgrade, state workers in the DOT's Ruidoso office began entertaining alternative options about two years ago. Tourism and recreation are the big uses of the road to the ski area.
    A consultant recommended building a gondola — a type of aerial tramway — to bypass the need for road repairs.
    Each gondola would carry eight people at a time over a distance of three miles. The system could run year-round and would be capable of transporting 2,400 people in an hour, said Bob Kurtz, DOT's District II engineer.
    The price would be about the same as building a new roadway, an estimated $25 to $30 million. To his knowledge, Kurtz said the DOT has never undertaken a gondola project in New Mexico.
    "This is something we would call thinking outside the box," Kurtz said Thursday. "With the price of asphalt, the gondola option looked like something that was plausible."
    Meanwhile, a downturn in state highway dollars and an uncertainty about federal funding have put the project on hold, at least temporarily.
    The project does not appear to have been widely discussed within the department. Spokesman S.U. Mahesh of the DOT in Santa Fe told the Journal on Thursday afternoon that he had never heard of the gondola plan.
    George Brooks, executive director of Ski New Mexico, a nonprofit group that represents the state's ski industry, praised the plan but said an all-seasons road would probably need to be maintained in addition to the gondola.
    "I think that anything that will stimulate winter and summer tourism would be extremely helpful," said Brooks, the longtime ski coach at the of University of New Mexico. An increase in "green" thinking could lead to more types of alternative transportation, he added.
    "This is used a lot in Europe," he said of gondolas. "They use a lot of trains and trams to transport people from their village to the ski area."
    Albuquerque's Sandia Peak ski area has had a tram serving it since 1966, but the service is privately funded.
    Ski Apache, formerly known as Sierra Blanca Ski Resort, has been owned and operated by the Mescalero Apache Tribe since 1983. The mountain features 11 ski lifts and an 1,800-foot vertical drop.
    There were preliminary talks about a possible cost-sharing agreement between the state and the tribe for the project, but figures weren't discussed, Kurtz said.
    "They were very helpful and interested in getting more skiers up to the top of the mountain," he said of tribal leaders.
    Mescalero Apache Tribal President Carleton Naiche-Palmer returned a phone call and left a message with the Journal on Thursday but could not subsequently be reached for comment.