in Development
Part 3: So you don’t like the updated general plan? What are you going to do about it?
In Part 1 and Part 2 of a series of posts about how to voice your opinion over the updated General Plan, we talked about needing to formulate a plan of your own and some advice on how to be most effective when providing your opinion to the Planning Commission and County Council. In this final part, we’ll provide an example of how we are personally getting prepared for next Tuesday’s meeting with the Planning Commission regarding the General Plan.
As part of the proposed General Plan, there are areas that may become “receiving areas” for density. This means that in order to prevent development from happening in some places, they will try to incent developers to move development to other places designated for density (i.e. receiving areas). So, say that a developer has the right to put condos on a piece of land next to the Swaner Nature Preserve. Summit County may decide that they would prefer as much contiguous, open-space as possible in that area. So, they will try to convince the owner to “trade” the right to put their condos near the Swaner for the right to build in a “receiving area.” This is then repeated with various land owners across the Basin. If everything works out, the county has preserved “optimal” land so that nothing is developed there and pushed that development to planned-density areas. That sounds pretty good and it can work out that way.
Examples of these proposed receiving areas include:
- land around the Boyer Tech Park
- the area around the concrete plant near Quinn’s Junction
- the land around the Bell’s gas station at Silver Creek
- the area between Jeremy Ranch Elementary School and Burt Brothers
- the base of Canyons, the area by Fresh Market in Pinebrook
- the land by Home Depot
- the land west of Jeremy Ranch Elementary School including the Jeremy Store and the hill across the street (that many people think are open space)
Our concern is the last item on that list. Granted, we live in Jeremy Ranch, so our position is more biased than most when it comes to this area. However, living in the area also gives us knowledge that our county’s planners may not have. You may live in Silver Creek and think that building up the area around Bell’s is a bad idea. You may live in Silver Springs and wonder how you’ll ever leave your house if the Home Depot area becomes a receiving area (on top of the 1000+ housing units that are coming). You may hate driving into Kimball Junction today and wonder what doubling that density means. It’s your job to come up with the arguments that sway the decisions makers.
With that in mind, here are our arguments (some better than others of course) for why Jeremy Ranch should not be a receiving area:
- Right now, any open land is zoned for minimal office space and a few feet of retail. A receiving area that contains commercial would substantially change the character of Jeremy Ranch. Jeremy Ranch is a neighborhood of mostly homes, a golf course, and a gas station mostly serving residents. Having increased density and commercial offerings would completely change the character of the neighborhood.
- We understand the desire to enable each neighborhood to be self sufficient with a grocery, restaurants, and coffee shops so that traffic is reduced. Yet, Jeremy Ranch residents already have that across the street in Quarry Village in Pinebrook and will likely have that down Rasmussen Road. If preventing people driving out of a neighborhood for groceries is a concern, then there needs to be a receiving area near Old Ranch Road to service those people with groceries (they have farther to drive than we do currently). Why isn’t that in the plan?
- Adding additional housing units to Jeremy Ranch impacts the number of students at Jeremy Ranch Elementary School. Currently, some students in the area have to go to other elementary schools. By adding additional housing to this area, it will displace additional students and force them to go to other schools around the Basin. This will contribute to increased traffic as parents drive kids from Jeremy Ranch to McPolin.
- By increasing density, traffic will increase in close proximity to an elementary school. The amount of traffic around school start/end is already large. Adding to this will likely cause an extremely dangerous situation for any children who want to walk or ride their bikes to school.
- This area is currently a large wildlife corridor. Elk and moose move from the Jeremy Ranch Golf Course into the open space around the Jeremy Store. This wildlife will be displaced, possibly onto the roads, thus endangering both animals and humans.
- The roads currently don’t support increased density. We know that a large roundabout will be built at the entrance/exit to I-80; however, the ancillary roads such as Rasmussen and Homestead/Sackett won’t support the additional traffic. Traffic would be a nightmare if additional housing units and businesses are added and in many places there is not room to add an additional two lanes to try and alleviate that nightmare.
- In order to support additional traffic along Homestead Road, they will likely need to remove the bike lanes that people have become accustomed to. This makes it more dangerous for children, especially with all the heavy construction equipment going up Homestead/Sacket Drive.
- There is effectively one way out of Jeremy Ranch should a forest fire happen. What happens when an additional housing units and businesses are added and those people would need to exit the subdivision in the case of natural disaster?
- This area is in Service Area 6. We are taxed extra for both repairs to our roads and snow removal. A plan like this will require more roads, thus more repairs, and more snow removal. We don’t want to pay one more penny in taxes today, tomorrow, or ten years than we do today (due to this). If you do go forward with this plan, we want a guarantee that our taxes won’t be raised due to this receiving area. Unfortunately, we know you can’t do that.
- Speaking of Service Area 6, doesn’t this make “service areas” somewhat moot? We bought in an area where we had a known quantity of roads. As the General Plan states, “The Jeremy Ranch neighborhood contains subdivisions that are largely built-out. ” Isn’t there a certain expectation that comes with that (i.e., we have a certain amount of roads to pay to be maintained and that wouldn’t change)? So, if someone wanted to transfer density from an area outside of Service Area 6 to Jeremy Ranch, do we have to automatically accept that? Do we pay more for something where there is absolutely no benefit to us?
- This will likely lead to a drastic change in the feel of the area. As we know, planning guides conversations, but the details often end up being very different from what might have been initially conceived. If current plans come to fruition, there will likely be commercial space, separated by the elementary school from the Jeremy Golf Course to Burt Brothers to the nursery. Most of us living here didn’t sign up for living in a Draper-esque community, being lined by commercial shops.
- Receiving areas should generally be centrally located in an area. For instance, a receiving area by a central transit hub like Boyer Tech Park makes sense. People either drive a short distance to the businesses in the receiving area or live in the receiving area and are located in close proximity to business they may use and/or public transit options. If you build a receiving area in Jeremy Ranch, which would be on the far edge of the Basin, people are either going to drive from far away to get to any businesses in Jeremy Ranch or are going to drive from the receiving area (Jeremy Ranch) a longer distance to get to where other businesses are. People who live in the receiving area are also less likely to take Public transit because it will take too long to get anywhere since we are on the outskirts of the area (i.e. via bus it currently takes 45 minutes plus waiting time to get from Jeremy Ranch to PCMR or 14 minutes via car). You can pack more people in here but it just puts more cars on the road.
We’re sure we are missing a few other factors and will add them if possible. However, hopefully that provides some insight to the reasons we hope Jeremy Ranch does not become a receiving area. Even if you don’t live in Jeremy Ranch perhaps the list provides some factors that may influence whether you want something like this in your neck of the woods.
in Schools
How is the Park City School Board Getting Educated on Finance?
Do you ever turn on the History Channel and expect to see something about Napolean’s escape from Elba but instead there is a 7 day marathon of Ancient Aliens? You probably don’t deny there could be aliens but the crackpots make you want to never hear about another alien again. The same can be said of watching Fox News or MSNBC. Either way, some political party is out to destroy the “American way of life.” Either way, it’s so biased that you discount everything said.
We felt that way when we viewed a recent Powerpoint presented to Tuesday’s Park City School Board. The title of the presentation was “School Finance 101.” We were looking through the document trying to better understand how schools are funded. Yet we were met with pictures of crazy people, confused babies, people ripping their hair out, Photoshopped sheep, and very…very….very sad children. For some reason we kept reading and got past that to view charts and tables about how other school districts pay hardly anything for their children to go to school while Park City residents pay everything. We read about how Utahns were “robbing Peter to Pay Paul” and how there were wolf in sheep’s clothing. We read about how higher education was taking all the money from school districts like Park City.
While we are sure there are merits to some of the arguments, we felt like we were watching Al Sharpton on MSNBC tells us why “The Republicans are to blame for everything” or Rush Limbaugh educating the “Truthers” on why “Obama” should be impeached over his birth certificate. My god. We would just ignore it all, but it makes us wonder if this is the norm in our schools. We keep hearing about “Professional Learning Centers” and how our students learn to use logic to become better citizens. Yet, if this is an example of the way ideas are taught, we think perhaps those devising the curriculum have gotten the wrong message on propaganda from George Orwell.
To be fair this presentation was initially created by someone within the Ogden School District, but frankly we were shocked that a document like this would be presented to the Park City School Board at all. We just hope that during the meeting they actually discussed school finance in an objective manner and didn’t rely on a biased presentation with an obvious agenda to “educate” them on funding of schools.
You should take a look and see what you think.
in Huh?
Won’t This Impact The Uinta Express Pipeline?
We saw that oil prices were still cratering as of this morning. So, we decided to look up the price of Uinta Basin Black Waxy Crude. All we can say is “WOW!”
We know oil prices are volatile and prices could change in the coming months, but the change in price in the last year has to have some impact on the proposed oil pipeline through Summit County. This may be the perfect example of why you always continue to fight things you really oppose. You may get lucky and fight long enough that it no longer becomes an option for the foreseeable future.
Why Approve a Proposal That Causes More Traffic?
Over the past few months the Summit County government has spent countless hours internally working on solutions to transportation problems. They’ve spent over $100,000 on consultants who provided uninspired suggestions. They have taken input (and valuable time) from hundreds of citizens, that apparently will go almost nowhere. And they have concluded that they will have to solve the problem themselves.
We get it. Transportation problems are enemy number one in Summit County. However, does the county REALLY GET IT?
On Wednesday, Home Savings Bank is requesting that the Summit County Council allow them a special exception to increase the number of uses on their property (by the Blue Roof Market and Parley’s Park Elementary). Currently only community banking services and commercial/business office space uses, that are “low intensity traffic generators,” are permitted. According to the county’s staff report, “The applicant seeks to expand the palette of potential uses for the property.” These new uses (with permits) would include medical/dental offices, offices with moderate amounts of customer interaction and traffic generated, and offices with a high level of customer interaction and traffic generated. The Summit County Planning Department recommends that the county council approve the exception.
The planning department looks at four standards when making this recommendation:
- Is this detrimental to the public’s health, safety, and welfare?
- Is the intent of the general plan and development code met?
- Is there any other process that the applicant can use to solve their problem?
- Are there unique circumstances warranting the special exception?
The planning department’s conclusion is that this development meets all those standards.
Yet, what about the traffic issues that have been at the top of the agenda? The only reason to ask for this exception is to allow uses that cause more traffic, as they can already have office space with low traffic. Each of the additional requested options would likely cause more traffic, which also happens to be both in a current trouble spot (Highway 224) and around a school. The reports says, “Staff does not anticipate any nonmitigatible impacts related to traffic …” How exactly are they going to mitigate additional traffic going down 224? This traffic must come down 224 to get there and if it is successful at all, there will be more of it.
During the past two years, the county council approved a hotel on 224 partly because they felt it would have less traffic impacts than a restaurant and office. Approving this (versus doing nothing) is guaranteed to be the option that can generate more traffic.
So, we’re not sure how this actually isn’t detrimental to the public’s health, safety, and welfare (Standard #1, above). More cars cause more pollution (health). More cars will be driving around a school (safety). More cars on 224 will contribute to the log jam (welfare).
We also wonder if this runs counter to General Plan Phase 2 that is likely to be approved in the coming months. A thoughtful citizen pointed us to the proposed Synderville Basin General Plan Phase 2 (regarding another story). It says, “Policy 2.3: Do not approve any new entitlements beyond base zoning until such time that existing entitlements are significantly exhausted.” Would this be an additional entitlement? It is an entitlement of more rights. So approving this would probably be a good example of what the General Plan Phase 2 appears to be trying to limit.
We do understand the property owner’s desire to have more flexibility. We also understand the argument that says that a property owner should have the right to do whatever they want with their property. Generally, that’s a larger discussion, though. In this case, however, the current use was specifically granted in 2002. Any other use requires a change to what was granted before and the owner knew should have known their rights when the property was built and/or bought.
It’s our opinion that generating more traffic, which would be a byproduct of this request, is not in the best interests of Summit County. Whether it puts 50 more cars on 224 in the middle of the day, 20 more cars at rush-hour (yes you have to agree that Park City now has a “rush-hour”), or requires an additional bus to accommodate this traffic…why approve it? It just contributes to a problem for which we currently have very few solutions.
in Growth, Transportation
Out of The Box Transportation Idea #3… Say No to Growth
Summit County hired a transportation consultant to provide ideas on how to limit traffic in and around Park City. The County did not like the actions they suggested (the consultant suggested buses) and asked for more creativity. We had written that the County now at least owns the problem. Readers then responded to us saying that if it was so easy, why don’t we provide some “creativity.” Last week we provided two ideas we hadn’t heard being discussed. Today we present our favorite out-of-the-box idea that we believe makes so much sense in solving traffic problems, it should actually be the entire box.
Over the holiday break, we watched Back to the Future 3 — the second best of the franchise’s movies. In the movie, a time traveling Christopher Lloyd (Doc) and Michael J Fox (Marty) go back to the wild west. A picture, brought back from the future, shows that Doc is going to be shot because his name is on a picture of a tombstone (and then disappears after a series of events). Marty says “This tombstone could still be your future.” Doc replies, “Marty, the future isn’t written. It can be changed. You know that. Anyone can make their future whatever they want it to be.”
That’s how we feel about Park City and Summit County. Yet, we continually hear that by 2040 Park City will have a gazillion people in it. There is nothing that can be done and we have to plan for it. To do that, we will build underground rail and put hundreds of buses on the road at any one time. We’ll need 10 lane roads. We’ll have to convince people to take public transportation by charging people $5 an hour to park anywhere . We need to shut down all traffic to inner Park City. We’ll have to build a third exit out of Park City (to provide an alternative to 224 and 248). We’ll tunnel through mountains. We’ll spend billions if we have to. No, we’ll spend tens of billions. “We have no choice!,” they cry.
But we do have a choice.
Say no to growth.
“Impossible!”, you say? No, we’ve just been led to believe that. Whether it’s in the Park Record or on TV, we are constantly bombarded with a statistic from 2010 by the Governor’s office that says the Park City area will grow by 85% in the next 25 years. It’s stated as if it’s a fact; however, it’s just a projection. The events on the ground will dictate growth. There are all sorts of events from natural disasters to another Great Recession that could limit growth. The question is whether policies and planning could limit that growth and thus limit traffic problems. We firmly believe the answer is yes.
Take the simple example of the Park City School District allowing the High School to remain open to outside enrollment (i.e. out of district students can attend PCHS). They did this, allegedly, because they didn’t have a policy in place for how to handle existing out of district students. We’ll ignore the direct financial cost for now, but will point out that there will be more cars on the road because of this decision. You can also look at the plan to make Jeremy Ranch a “receiving area for density.” What that means is that they will likely allow condos to be built on a 12 acre piece of land near the Jeremy Store. That’s 100-200 condos — with three to four people per condo. That policy decision would increase our population by 400-800 people. That’s new people out of thin air. Down the road, between Jeremy Ranch Elementary and Burt Brothers, there is more open land that could be rezoned and will likely include condos. Right now, that’s zoned as 1 house per 20 acres. So, in that area… you could have maybe 4 houses with the existing zoning (maybe 12-16 people) or you could rezone and have a 1,000 new people.
It goes beyond decisions to purely limit land use. There are many parcels of land with existing rights, which must be respected. Take for example, the 1,000+ units to be built near Home Depot. The owner has the right to build something there. However, we don’t believe the County has any obligation to ensure that there’s not a traffic jam getting out of the area every day. If it’s known that day-to-day living isn’t going to be easy in some of these locations, there will likely be less buyers and less building.
Another example is affordable housing. The County could remove the requirements for building affordable housing. Perhaps, instead they could make a requirement for building temporary housing (or fee in lieu) to go to the Peace House or Mountainlands Community Trust. Don’t make it cheap to live here.
They could also update the General Plan to say that we don’t want growth. Make changes to the development code to limit the number of units on land by requiring large setbacks, limiting height (even more than they do), or specific structural components that make our buildings better but more expensive.
The County could not issue a conditional use permit to Vail to connect their gondola between PCMR and Canyons. A one sided Gondola doesn’t go anywhere.
There are literally hundreds of ways that growth could be impacted via policy. Granted, not all of them may be palatable, but it’s possible. The point is that through policy, growth can be limited. This is something entirely within the control of our government leaders. Otherwise, they are left on the defensive trying to clean up after a problem has materialized. It is far better to manage the event than the result. The County put in rules regarding burning after Rockport fire, to try and prevent another one. Why not do the same thing here?
Of course, this course of action wouldn’t appeal to certain groups within our community. There is the building industry. There would be less to build, although there is quite a bit of land already OK’d for development. There are the real estate agents who would have less houses to sell (although there are still a ton of houses). There are the land owners who would love to be able to get rid of existing rules and let them build a dollar store next to your house. The issue is, however, these views are all about them and not Park City. It’s about what would be good for them and not what would be good for our community. Do we want what’s good for Vail or what’s good for Park City? If they happen to overlap, great… if not, we want what’s good for Park City.
That said, there are some negatives to limiting growth. Without growth, unless property values rise, property tax revenues stay at the current levels. This means either limiting expense growth in our schools (to match growth in property values) or raising taxes. Likewise, if tourism is maintained at existing levels, that means sales tax is kept at current levels. That means there is not more money to increase government spending. It would really require fiscal discipline, which again may not be palatable.
So, there you have it … our third crazy idea. LIMIT GROWTH. Solve transportation problems by not having transportation problems. We really think it makes a lot of sense and is likely the only one that really solves the problem. We do realize that there will be some growth around Park City, regardless, and that growth won’t be STOPPED. Land owners are entitled to their current rights. However, with only small growth over the next 20 years, we could probably all learn to deal with the occasional bad traffic day (it would happen no matter what we do) and we’d learn to stay out of town around the holidays (just like we do at Sundance).
The main point, though, is that we are all in control of our future. We can decide to complain about traffic and growth in Park City. We can continue to say, “Park City ain’t what she used to be.” Or we can do something about it. One logical way to control the future is to decide what is really important. If we really want to “Keep Park City Park City,” we can start today and say no to growth. We can fight it on each street corner and in every meeting. Or we can let the growth happen and try to deal with the consequences.
It’s our future. We just need to decide what we want and go make it happen.
in Dogs
Is There a More Disrespectful Group of Dog Owners Than Skate Skiers Who Ski With Their Dogs?
First. We love dogs. We think Park City is a special place thanks to our dogs. We also believe the “war on dogs”, which was started by the Summit County Council a couple of years ago is rightfully over. There’s an off leash dog park that you can actually hike with your four-legged companions and rules regarding dogs have been tightened up (for the better).
All that being said, is there a more disrespectful group of dog owners that those that skate ski with their dogs? Is that a sweeping generalization? Yes. Are their likely some very conscientious skate skiers? Probably.
Yet, we just can’t help but notice how out of control and unmanaged most dogs seem to be with their skate skiing humans. We’re not sure if it’s the extra equipment that they need to put on that causes them to ignore their dogs at trail-heads. Is it too much of an effort to make sure your dog stays close to you, so they don’t end up running in the road? Do you ever wonder why your dog never poops when you are out skate skiing with them? Note, that’s because they do poop but either it’s too much effort to pick it up or they are 2 miles behind you on the trail and you never see it.
So we implore you — skate skiing dog owners. Please be a little more considerate or you’re are going to screw it all up for the rest of us.
in Growth
Utah Is Growing… But Maybe Not For the Reasons Most of Us Think
One of the myths that has been popularized is that Utah’s population growth has been driven by outsiders migrating to Utah since they witnessed how wonderful our state was during the 2002 Olympics. This then drives the image of thousands of people moving from all across the country to Park City. However, recently released data by the US Census Department shows how far that is from the truth.
From August 2013 through July 2014, Utah added more than 40,000 people. This was nearly twice the average US growth rate and we were ranked the 8th fastest growing state in the nation. Yet, where did most of those people come from? Their mothers. 90% of Utah’s growth in 2013 was due to more births than deaths. There was only a net migration of 4,000 people to Utah in 2013. If we look at that net migration, international migration (mainly from returning missionaries) was + 5,465. Net Migration domestically (within the U.S.) was actually negative at – 1,235. So, in terms of people within the US coming to or leaving Utah, more people left Utah to go elsewhere than came here to live.
This was similar to the two previous years where population increased by about 40,000 (2011-2012) and 47,000 (2012-2013) persons… with births accounting for about 90% of that growth. Domestic migration was -80 and +5,000 persons in those two years.
That said, this isn’t to say necessarily that the expected 85% growth of Summit County’s population by 2040 won’t happen. It may or may not. However, it’s important we understand how we get to that estimated number. The “how” is important because it should impact policy decisions. If we grow from 36,000 to 67,000 people in Summit County by 2040, that’s an extra 31,000 people. Yet 28,000 of those would be from Utah births. That’s a different economic group than imagining 30,000 people are going to be transplanted from the Upper East Side of Manhattan to Old Town.
If we are going to get that growth, it’ll likely be from life-long Utahns deciding they need to escape the air quality of the Salt Lake Valley. It will be your average joe who works an insurance job or is in construction. Of course, if houses appreciate at the long-term average of 3% a year, in 2040 the average house will cost $1.9 million. So, I guess we’ll see how all that works out.
What we do know is that Utah is growing, but it may not be for reasons we have become accustomed to. And that difference may make all the difference in the world when it comes to envisioning what we want our community to be.
Outside of the Box Thinking on Transportation
We received an email regarding yesterday’s post about Summit County government now owning the transportation problem. The email basically called us out and said alright “smart guy” why don’t you give us some innovative solutions if it’s so easy. First, if you’ve been reading our stuff you know that we aren’t very smart. We just like to blather on. Second, we don’t think a solution will be easy at all. Yet, if there is truly a problem to be solved then someone has to solve it. That someone now appears to be our city and county officials.
That said, we’ve got three ideas we haven’t heard anyone talk about. Here are two of them (we’ll save the third for later):
Gondolas
Yes gondolas, and we don’t mean the type you see in Venice. We mean the large aerial trams you’ll find in Europe, Austin, and coming to New York City. They cost 1/10th the price of light rail and move almost as many people per hour. Imagine a transit hub where the Boyer Tech Park is supposed to go. Gondolas go to Canyons, PCMR, Main Street, Silver Summit, Jeremy Ranch/Pinebrook, Richardson Flats, The High School, and across 224 to Kimball Junction. They travel at 25 miles per hour and would come every few minutes. they have the added benefit of being associated with ski resorts. So, having gondolas hanging in the air doesn’t really detract from our resort community. It would be a little slower than a car but not much. This, like any other form of transportation, would need to be combined with disincentives to get people out of their cars but it has a number of advantages that other forms of transportation just can’t meet.
Build the New Treasure Mountain Middle School in the Parking Lot of Park City High School
Imagine that Park City High School Students could no longer drive to school. Imagine that there was no parking for the Eccles Theater for Sundance. How much traffic would that take off of 248, especially during winter when school traffic and ski traffic combines to create road rage and a parking lot on 248? Perhaps a permit is required for parents to drop their children off as well, so that we don’t trade student vehicles for parent vehicles. So, build a school in the Parking Lot and make parking a non-option. Have people park at Richardson Flats and get bused in (or take the gondola per our idea above). Granted, we aren’t sure it would even fit but we are sure it would kill two birds with one stone: less traffic and the school district wouldn’t have to buy land for the new Treasure Mountain school. It also starts to look at solving our traffic issues incrementally versus trying to fix everything in one fail swoop.
Are these ideas crazy? Maybe. Would they work? They’d have to be analyzed. However, if our elected officials really want something creative, they are going to need a 100 crazy ideas and maybe a few will actually make sense. The thing is, crazy ideas aren’t comfortable. Sure buses and light rail are comfortable. They’ve all been done before but do they work for Park City? We saw the report from the transportation consultants and it looks like the bus option, while comfortable, is a non-starter. Next people will probably look at light rail. Good luck finding $30 million per mile for construction and who really wants that in their backyard? We really believe a combination of crazy ideas is likely the only solution that is feasible.
So, it should be interesting to see if our leaders, who are bright, are also inventive enough to come up with something that is just crazy enough to work.
Summit County Government Now Owns Our Transportation Problems
Did Summit County Council members commit the cardinal sin by trashing a recent transportation study designed to find solutions to potential transportation problems? Probably … and that’s a good thing.
A few months ago Summit County started a transportation study, predicated on a Governor’s Office report that says population will grow by 85% in the Snyderville Basin by 2040. The County paid a consulting company $135,000 to hold public meetings and recommend a course of action. The Park Record now reports that Summit County officials are displeased with transportation study results. Council member Roger Armstrong said, “Rather than bring us something that didn’t work, I would have loved to see some creativity. I think that is what I was expecting and what I thought we were paying for but it’s not what we got and I was disappointed. I didn’t feel like it was creative. We need to take a step back and start to think of transit issues differently.” County engineer Leslie Crawford said, “We were promised innovative solutions and I don’t think we got that. I definitely have my job cut out for me to come up with some innovative solutions and the stuff we need to explore. And I think it will help us succeed in the long run.”
So, what was the “solution” proposed by the consultants in the report? Buses. We know. That’s not exactly revolutionary. However, that’s not really the takeaway from the study. Here is what we got from the report, given the stated goal of keeping traffic at today’s level:
- In the future, public transportation will need to handle 45% of all people traveling around the basin. Right now it handles about 5.5%.
- In 2040, daily public transportation will need to serve 133,000 passengers per day (or 22 million annually) to keep traffic at today’s volume. Right now, all of UTA serves 21 million riders per year.
- 282 buses will need to be in operation at one time versus 16 now.
- In order to incent enough people to use public transportation, a mandatory charge of $4-$5 per hour for parking across Park City and the Snyderville Basin would need to be enacted.
- A bus system to handle the stated passenger load would cost $43 million annually to operate. Right now the entire Summit County budget is about $50 million.
So, our officials have said they were disappointed in the recommendation of buses and that they were looking for something more creative. Yet what the report really highlights is the problem that has to be solved. We now know we have to find some way of getting 133,000 people off the road every day. We just have to find a solution. When we say “we“, we really we mean our elected officials and government employees are now tasked with finding a solution. They basically called their consultant’s report a rehash of everything that was already known and said we needed to start over. However, they already spent $135K on that rehash.
So, it is our opinion that they blew their wad and now its up to them to come up with an idea or two that will solve our problem. As the old saying goes, “don’t criticize unless you have a solution.” To her credit, Leslie Crawford, the County Engineer, has stated that it is now obvious the County needs to come up with the right solution. We applaud her initiative. We just hope that the county can back up the bravado.
So, why do we say they committed the cardinal sin?
Simple. There are competing entities (Summit County, Park City, Wasatch County, UTA, Mountain Accord). Any solution will be expensive. The proposed problem is 20-30 years off. There is no easy solution here.
Therefore, succeeding is an almost impossible task. Yet since this has been labeled as one of the most important issues that the county faces and they were willing to spend $135,000 on consultants, we know that failure is not an option. So, we are in the hands of the Summit County Council (Roger Armstrong, Claudia McMullin, Kim Carson, Dave Ure, and Chris Robinson), the County Engineer (Leslie Crawford), the Summit County Community Development department (headed by Pat Putt), and a few others. If they succeed in devising a logical plan that meets the communities need they should be rewarded either through re-election or increased salaries. If they fail then they should face the appropriate consequences.
We have smart people involved in our government. In some ways it’s good that they are now personally responsible for the success or failure of finding a solution to one of the most important issues facing Summit County. Now, instead of getting mad at the drivers around you as you wait in afternoon ski traffic, you have someone personally to blame. Do we really think [pick a name] can solve this crisis by themselves? No. But will that scrutiny and focus perhaps drive our leaders to actually come up with something? Yes.
We’ll be waiting to hear about some of those out of the box ideas.
in Huh?
Damn Cold!
We can’t wait to hear this one today…. “See Cletus, I told you there wasn’t any global warming.”
Parkrag
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