A WHOLE LOTTA PARKING LOTS- or BIG LOTS AT ROYAL GORGE CROSS COUNTRY SKI

No, I'm not talking about our roads, although they'll certainly be negatively impacted by Royal Gorge LLC's (RG) planned 1000 unit development.  Well, RG's consultant thinks they'll be fine, but using a LOS  (level of service ) rating of A-F, some of those roads are going to be bringing home grades you wouldn't be happy to see your kid bring home from school- you'd encourage them to study harder-or else. Speaking of studies, RG's Traffic Study- it just looked at expected day to day traffic, summer and winter, and parking. There was no assessment of the one traffic day that is our worst nightmare, when the entire community would have to evacuate, out Soda Springs Road in the case of fire.  What LOS would that road have in the event of fire, as an entire community struggled with the built-in bottlenecks?  And we'd really be in trouble if the fire happened to cut off Soda Springs Road, our sole egress. Will Placer County make Royal Gorge look at that, or will we all just hope for the best, and resign ourselves and our families to perdition? It's a shame two egresses weren't designed into Serene Lakes back when folks didn't know better- it may be bordering on criminal negligence to fail to redress the problem now before putting more than twice as many lives at risk.  And please, be sure to communicate that to Placer County supervisors, and Royal Gorge LLC, while the problem can be solved.  It may save your life.

But our one egress is a subject for another day- today it's parking lots. Take a gander at the Royal Gorge traffic document. Short take- there are going to be a whole lot of parking lots. Long take- maybe there aren't going to be enough parking spaces, if this huge empire is built, as the method used to calculate need for parking spaces maybe doesn't quite jibe with reality, especially the optimistic assumptions that all the ski camp workers and many,many of the customers will be walking, riding shuttles,  sharing rides, etc. Also, the modeling used posited that parking spaces could be shared (with clever formulas)- but is this borne out in real life? If wishes were horses and all that... In the summer our roads at Serene Lakes will provide overflow parking, not an inviting thought- but what are they going to do in winter, when you can't park on public roads? Offer valet parking?

Back to the whole lotta lots- Wilderness camp parking lots are expected to be placed at Ski Camp too, so Ski Camp won't just be an eyesore of 3-4 story buildings and their required lots, suburban sprawl, and lifts, looming over our community of (not so) Serene Lakes- it's going to be an absolute wasteland of parking lots, where there used to be trees, and shrubs, and wildlife. Conservation, Royal Gorge style. Oh, and they'll need parking also for when they run lifts in the Summer- one of their quiet plans. Oh joy, lifts in summer- what next- OHVs all over wilderness camp? And is there special parking for those OHVs?

But here's the sad part. RG doesn't think they'll require any more than the present 275 parking spaces at Summit Station, because they feel the number of cross-country skiers needing parking is not expected to increase with the project, as "any increase in cross-country skiers generated by the new dwelling units are assumed to access the trails primarily via non-auto modes (ski-in/ski-out or shuttle.)" It's not hard to read between the lines here- who in their right mind is going to want to drive up to Royal Gorge to spend money to cross country ski between houses and condos,and all that hardscape, rubber mats across the driveways, roads, and parking areas notwithstanding?  Why would anyone want to cross country ski in a suburb? Maybe RG won't need a parking lot there at all... I do so like to end on a positive note.

Foster and Syme's purchase of Royal Gorge Cross Country Ski Resort never was about cross country skiing, was it?