Connecting Avon to Beaver Creek with a series of lifts raises problems for the Town of Avon ranging from parking to building a new crossing point over the Union Pacific Railroad tracks and operating shuttle buses.

It is not known if the ski company will request funding from Avon as it had in a previous, more elaborate gondola proposal.

The upside for the town is that it will be, by dint of the gondola and lifts, "on the beach. " In other words, the skier traffic the gondola could bring to Avon's door could energize the local economy.

The "pulse" gondola is expected to have a 700 person per-hour capacity, somewhat less than the gondola previously proposed by Beaver Creek and Vail Resorts.

The "pulse" gondola, unlike the Lionshead gondola, does not run continuously - its stops and starts as passengers board and disembark. The "fixed-grip" concept is similar to the lift in Glenwood Springs accessing the caverns there.

The local gondola would run from the 18.4-acre confluence lot, just north of the Eagle River in Avon, to just above Beaver Creek's Tarnes employee housing on Prater Road. Skiers will then have to board a new-high speed quad lift that would take them past the Ritz-Carlton, Bachelor Gulch, where they could either ski down or board a second high-speed quad lift that would connect with Chair 12.

The lift proposal requires financial contributions from several districts within Beaver Creek and possibly the town of Avon. The resort company has a financial obligation to some of the districts in Beaver Creek to build a new lift that would reduce traffic on the main road to Beaver Creek village.

Both Beaver Creek and Avon operate buses and shuttles that run to Beaver Creek Village.

The gondola proposal calls for adding one more Avon shuttle that would not run all the way to the village, but would make stops between the Tarnes parking lot and Beaver Creek's skier parking lots on Highway 6.

Avon Town Manager, Larry Brooks, said he's not sure the proposed new route will lure many passengers, but it will increase costs.

"It makes the bus route longer and it makes it more expensive," Brooks said. "We’re taking people to a place they may not want to go."

"Moving parking off the confluence lot and replacing it with the gondola building and developments such as hotels or shops will increase traffic to the area," Brooks said.

"The land use dramatically swings then," Brooks said. "The pulse gondola to the Tarnes Express Lift is a big transit hub. We'll be curious to see what Beaver Creek has to say about all of this."

"We need to stay true to our principals, " he added. "We shouldn't be paying for transportation south of Highway 6."

"The ski company may also wait until it develops the confluence land before building the pulse gondola, " Brooks said.

The information for this article was taken from an article written for the Vail Daily Newspaper on January 4, 2004 by Christine Ina Casillas. She can be reached at 970-949-0555, ext. 607 or at ccasillas@vaildaily.com