Sunshine Village is going to have a major parking problem on their hands unless a solution is found before the beginning of next ski season.  Last November Parks Canada announced a ban on parking along the access road set to start at the beginning of the 2017/18 ski season.  Currently Sunshine uses the access road for overflow parking and on busy days it’s normal to see rows of cars parked on the side of that road with skiers waiting for a shuttle to take them to the gondola terminal.  With no parking alternatives currently present and no immediate way to handle the regular influx of vehicles that regularly goes beyond the capacity of their current lot, Sunshine Village is going to court and has also launched a public Take-Action campaign.

Last week Tanya and I did an Insider segment critical of Sunshine Village’s desire to push for solutions without having their Site Guidelines in place, something that all ski resorts located in a National Park are required to have and the other three resorts in Banff and Jasper have completed.  Dave Riley, the Chief Operating Officer and Senior Vice President of Sunshine Village, wanted to respond to some of our comments and share their side of the story.  On today’s show we discussed the difficult negotiations Parks and Sunshine have had over these guidelines, the pubic safety concerns Parks has cited as impetus to close the road to parking, and what’s next for Sunshine in their effort to solve this issue.

 

Our segment also caught the attention of Crosbie Cotton from the National Parks Ski Areas Association.  He joined me on the show earlier this week to share insight from his involvement in the Site Guideline process with other National Park ski resorts and talk about why Sunshine’s situation is much different from everyone else.

 

I emailed Parks Canada offering a chance for them to speak to this.  Their spokesperson replied with this written response:

Parking on the Sunshine Village access road poses safety risks to those who park their vehicles along this road. In the interest of public safety, Parks Canada will implement a prohibition on parking along this road beginning in the ski season 2017-2018. As this matter is before the courts, it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.

The one thing that’s not in dispute is, if Sunshine and Parks can’t work out a solution to this issue before next season, the biggest losers will be skiers, snowboarders, and the devoted fans of one of North America’s top ski destinations.