Stop the Lot

The proposed parking lot would be built on a steep, forested hillside located on the north side of Big Cottonwood Canyon Road (State Route 190). It would be situated across the road from the eastern (Village) entrance to Solitude Mountain Resort and near Old Stage Road.

The proposal is for two large, interconnected parking lots that would provide 593 parking spaces. The project would require clear-cutting and bulldozing nearly 15 acres, specifically 14.96 acres, of land.

The project will:

• Add a new traffic light intersection where vehicles will be making left-hand turns into the new lots.
• Worsen congestion between Brighton and Solitude and “dramatically increase traffic congestion”.
• Create a new turnout where hundreds of cars will queue up to turn into and out of the lot, on a road already “plagued by traffic jams”.
• Bring hundreds more vehicles into the canyon daily, leading to more delays, noise, and exhaust pollution.
• Create “chaos for traffic going up and down the canyon,” according to the Brighton Community Council.

The project would:

• Require building retaining walls up to 40 feet high.
• Lead to a “great loss for forest health, water quality, [and] wildlife,” according to the Brighton Community Council.
• “Devastate an ecosystem” that is currently home to moose, deer, birds, and other animals.
• Require clear-cutting nearly 15 acres of a “roadless, forested hillside” covered in quaking aspen trees.
• Increase contamination flowing into Big Cottonwood Creek, which is described as “Salt Lake Valley’s most important source of drinking water”.

• It will make the road “even more dangerous and chaotic” for pedestrians.
• A proposed traffic light would have pedestrians and shuttles regularly crossing the road.
• Passengers from the new lot would need to walk or be shuttled across Big Cottonwood Canyon Road to get to the resort village.
• The Central Wasatch Commission’s Stakeholders Council warned that on peak days, over 1,100 guests could be crossing the road at “a high speed, low-visibility stretch”, which would “introduce safety risks” and increase the “likelihood of accidents”.

Better solutions are already underway, including:

• UDOT has also announced it will build a 1,500-car parking and transit facility at the mouth of the canyon, which will provide “frequent bus service up and down the canyon”.
• The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) is creating an environmental study on transportation in Big Cottonwood Canyon to provide a “roadmap for future transportation projects”.

Several groups and agencies that have publicly opposed the proposal since the spring of 2025, including:

• Save Our Canyons
• Utahns for Better Canyon Access (UBCA)
• The Mayor of Salt Lake City
• The Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities
• The Brighton Community Council
• The Central Wasatch Commission’s Stakeholders Council
• Wasatch Backcountry Alliance

• Making a donation to help UBCA’s advocacy work.
• Attending meetings of the Brighton Town Council and Planning Commission.
• Sending emails to members of the Brighton Town Council and Planning Commission (contact information is provided in the document).

This is a complex legal and zoning issue

• The Town of Brighton is considering a “clarification” to its ordinances that would explicitly state that resort support facilities (like parking lots) are only allowed within existing ski resort boundaries. The document implies that if this clarification is not made, Solitude could “claim the right to build commercial support facilities… anywhere in the Town of Brighton”.
• Solitude (owned by Alterra) is seeking a conditional use permit for the project.
• The proposed site is currently zoned for residential use and is situated outside the ski resort’s boundary.
• Alterra also needs access through land owned by the Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities, which “has so far opposed the project”.