We’ve all sat in traffic on a random Friday at about 4:30. I know that traffic in town during the week after Christmas is horrible. We’ve all read about CARMAGEDDON (some even experienced it). Almost all of us have experienced BLINKING LIGHT SYNDROME when stoplights in Kimball Junction start blinking red.

Yet, is it really a problem? More importantly, if it really is a problem, is it a problem we can solve?

The reason I ask is that the city and county are poised to spend multiples of millions of dollars on trying to solve the “problem.” During the last few years, it seems there have been countless stories in the Park Record and on KPCW about how bad traffic is. However, as time goes on, I wonder if we are all just being ginned up, for lack of anything better to talk about.

Ask any of your friends or family visiting from Washington DC, Florida, or Los Angeles if the traffic is bad here and I’d bet they’d say “what traffic?”. A couple of years ago my sister was from Chicago during the week before New Years. I asked her if the traffic would stop here from coming back…she said…you guessed it, “what traffic?

I realize that traffic is probably worse here than during the 80’s when Park City was really a one horse town, but do we have a problem? You may say “who cares. What harm can it do to make traffic better?” The problem is that “traffic” often becomes an incubator for other projects and solutions. It leads to a myriad of solutions, poised to save us from what may become a REAL PROBLEM, but isn’t now.

I’ll be the first to admit that traffic could become a real issue if economic growth continues around Park City. Yet, in Park City does it regularly take 3 hours to get home from skiing on a Sunday? No. That’s what folks in Denver face. Does it take an hour to go 2 miles? Maybe once a year… maybe.

So, do we have a traffic problem? If your definition of problem is having to wait at all… then yes. However, in the scheme of things, the wait just isn’t that long. And the question we need to ask as citizens is whether it is really a problem worth pouring millions into.

Every time we complain or tell others that “traffic was horrible,” when it was only a minor inconvenience, we are feeding the beast. We are telling our elected representatives that they must solve our traffic problem. They will add more bus routes. They will increase the frequency of buses. They will find ways to make it too expensive or cumbersome to drive. This is all in the name of “solving” traffic… because the people told them it was a problem, They are doing what they are supposed to do — listen to the people.

So, I ask the following questions of fellow citizens, “Do we have enough of a traffic problem, to throw millions of dollars at it?” If you say yes, “What then is the likelihood that our local governments can actually solve it?”

If you answer yes to the first question and give them better than 50% odds on the second question, then I suppose constantly complaining about traffic makes sense. However, if you don’t think it’s worth it or you don’t think they can solve it, all complaining is going to do is likely waste time, money, and resources that could spent more effectively elsewhere.

We live in a great place with many great elected officials that actually often listen to their constituents. That’s rare. We just need to ensure that they are hearing the right things. If not, we are doing ourselves a huge disservice.

As long time readers know, I have been skeptical of Park City bus service providing a larger part of the solution to our traffic problems, than it does today. In its current form, I see how visitors may use the service but have a difficult time envisioning locals utilizing it more.

I had heard through the grapevine that my conjecture was off base; that the bus service was exceeding expectations. I was told that it was doing so well that additional bus service was being considered.

I’ll be the first to admit that actual statistics usually trump gut feelings. So, a few weeks ago I reached out to Summit County for statistics on the number of riders using bus service. I wanted to see if actual data backed up my anecdotal theories. I’ll save any commentary until I have a chance to sit down with Summit County Regional Transportation Planning Director Caroline Ferris and discuss the trends they are seeing.

However, I did want to present the data. Below is a graph of bus ridership from 2015 to present (2015 is in bright yellow and you can click the graph for larger version)). If you are interested, you can also the detailed data that shows ridership by general route.

If you have any questions you’d like me to ask Summit County (given this data), please email me at

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Quick Quiz…

According to Summit County, which group is more responsible for congestion on our roads?

A. Locals

B. Workers living outside the Snyderville Basin and other visitors

The answer is …wait for it… B.

According to a recent staff report given to the Summit County Council, “It’s a common misconception that the Snyderville Basin and the greater Park City area have experienced tremendous residential growth in the past years and because of this, residents are concerned about the amount of traffic congestion. Analysis of Census population numbers indicate that during the last five years, population growth has actually been below the state average; while Park City grew by about six percent, Summit County population only increased by about one percent overall.”

Here’s the money line that brings it all home, “In reality, it’s not residential growth that has led to congestion on our two primary roadways, SR-248 and SR-224. Instead, it’s the unintended consequence of amazing economic and job growth.”

The staff report says during the last 5 years the number of available jobs in the Park City area has increased 40%, compared to 15% increase in the number of jobs statewide. So, our economy appears to be growing much faster than even the Utah average, which is the fastest in the country. Ask 10 people on the street and 11 of them would probably say that’s a good thing.

Yet, when you think about traffic, maybe it’s not.

When we expanded the village at Kimball and added all the little shops and fast food (Del Taco, 5 Guys, Zupas, the ice cream place, Simply Mac, Spectrum Salon, the Barking Cat, the AT&T store, Pure Barre, Spring Mobile, Jimmy Johns, Park City Bagel, and Freebirds) how many of those folks working there live near Park City? Oh, we also expanded Smiths and added on a fuel station. I love my Smith’s Fuel points but how many of those folks drive by themselves to work from Heber or Salt Lake?

Also don’t forget the Hyatt Hotel recently completed on 224, next to Park City Nursery. That was supposed to be a small restaurant and some office space. Now we have a hotel. How many people work at the hotel? How many people drive into the Snyderville Basin to work there? How many visitors stay there every night?

Also don’t forget that a few years ago we allowed Walmart to expand and also become a grocery. Did that increase the number of people on the road? A couple of years ago, we also approved an expansion of Tanger Outlet mall. My guess is that at least 10-20 new shops were part of that expansion. How many cars did that add to the road?

We’ve just approved a new Whole Foods that will be, I think, 30%-40% larger than the existing Whole Foods. How many extra people driving into the Snyderville Basin is that? Oh, and there are going to be up to 10 other retail stores as part of that development.

By the way, these were mostly net new entitlements. Most didn’t have to be allowed. Oh, and yes I know that the County says that the new Whole Foods isn’t an increased entitlement…that it is the same square footage as was previously granted in 2003. If so, it seems strange that there was so much debate about traffic and affordable housing related to something that was already approved and was “the same” as before. I would also bet that if the development agreement for this land wasn’t changed (thus allowing Whole Foods) the dirt would not have been moved yet (or for a quite a while).

I guess, all in all, I’m not surprised that job postings in the Snyderville Basin have gone up 40%.

And please don’t tell me that if we offered offered more affordable housing with bus stops at every location, it would have solved (or will solve) the issue. Even in Salt Lake, where public transit is deemed successful, only 5% of the people take public transportation.

All that said, I think Summit County has achieved what it set out to do — achieve economic growth coming out of the Great Recession. Yet even that seemingly admirable goal, has a price. Now we are learning what that price is.

I now hear that locals are scheming to get a new Trader Joe’s or Sprouts where the old (current) Whole Foods was. They are emailing Trader Joe’s corporate headquarters asking them to come to Park City. Forget the fact that Whole Foods has a lease there for the next few years … and I’m SURE Whole Foods would sublease to a competitor, not. Perhaps in three or four years, when the lease is done, we may see a Sprouts there. But do we really need 5 Supermarkets within 3 miles of each other? As important, do we need the extra employee cars on the road at rush hour?

How many cars have we added to our roads because we allowed more development (that we didn’t have to)?

If I’ve learned anything over my lifetime, it’s that it is easier to prevent a problem than to solve it. It’s seems that in the last five years, we’ve created (or at least heavily contributed to) a problem that we now need to solve. More traffic.

Is this the only reason we have congested roadways? Of course not. We live in a desirable place.

Going forward, even without increasing entitlements, we have so much entitled land that things will likely get worse with traffic. Yet, we as a community need to under the ramifications of our choices. If we hypothetically wanted to ask the County to rezone a portion of land on Highway 40, so Costco could come in, we need to understand what that means. If we elect leaders that want to bring businesses to Summit County we need to contemplate what the downside is.

Please don’t get me wrong. I shop at Smith’s. I go to the quick serve restaurants at the Village at Kimball. I’ll be the first in line at the new Whole Foods. Yes, I shop at Walmart. And I usually always drive my car. So, I get that I’m part of the problem.

That said, at some point, we’ll all need to look in the mirror while sitting in traffic. Instead of bitching about the cars, we’ll need to understand that in some ways we caused it.

Summit County Council Chairperson Roger Armstrong often says that there is no one solution to our traffic problems. I completely agree with those statements. However, I believe we not only need to find a multitude of solutions to our current problems but also find ways to prevent them in the first place.

As we know, last fall’s Park City School Board bond initiative failed. The public said NO to the school district proposal. Yet, did the district need to have a complete failure? No.

What would have generated enough public support to give the school board and district much of what they wanted? Imagine if instead of one large $56 million dollar bond, the school district would have had a bond to rebuild Treasure Mountain, a bond for adding on to the high school for 9th grade, a bond for the 5/6 school at Ecker and a bond for upgraded athletic facilities.

The public would have likely voted to rebuild Treasure Mountain. The public would have also likely voted to expand the high school. There is even a slim chance the people would have voted for the 5/6 school at Ecker. The district may not have gotten everything they wanted, but they would have got the important things.

Moving from the past to the future, it’s likely this November the public will be asked again to vote on tax increases. This time it is likely Summit County will propose at least two taxes increases for fixing our transportation problems. The county has been discussing implementing both a 0.25% “County Option sales and Use Tax for Transportation” and another 0.25% “County, City, or Town Option Sales and Use Tax to Fund a System for Public Transit.” Each tax would raise about $4.1 million per year (total of about $8 million) and would have to be approved by voters during this year’s election.

In an interview last Thursday on KPCW, County Council person Claudia McMullin and KPCW’s Leslie Thatcher were discussing the possible tax increase. According to the interview, Summit County road maintenance is now annually underfunded by between $500,000 and $1 million. Ms Thatcher asked whether that meant we would only need to implement something like a 0.08% tax increase to cover this shortfall. Ms McMullin replied that there are so many other projects that need to be done as well.

When I heard that comment from Ms McMullin (she is right, there are a lot of potential projects), it reminded me of the school bond. The similarities are that there are a lot of potential things that could be done, but the public is likely only going to support some of those.

So a question to ask is, could the county break up the tax increases into smaller portions and have the public vote individually on those? Instead of coming up with a laundry list of items these taxes may be used for then TRYING TO SELL THE COMMUNITY on “fixing transportation” could they instead put multiple taxes on the ballot that would add up to the 0.5% total of the two potential taxes? Perhaps they could put a 0.065% tax increase to fund ongoing maintenance of our roads. Then they could put 0.014% tax increase for funding increased frequency of bus service. A Kimball bus circulator tax could be put on the ballot at 0.06%. Maybe a tax for a park and rides (the turnout by Ecker and/or the land by Jeremy Ranch Elementary, then one by the Home Depot, etc.) could be put on the ballot at around 0.15%

We’ve recently heard through citizen surveys that people want solutions to traffic. Well, let them confirm that by voting with their pocketbook. More importantly, let the community not just vote for “fixing transportation” but for individual ideas. We’d probably learn that 90% of voters have no problem in keeping their roads updated. We’d then learn whether people thought increased bus frequency made sense. We’d also learn about the public interest in park and rides. It would be a very tactical way of looking at issues.

It would also enable the county to have very tactical messages. On the repairs and maintenance, they could cite their statistics that it costs many times more to replace a road than to maintain it. On bus frequency they could tell the public that the reason people don’t ride buses is because they come every half hour and if we bring that down to 7 to 15 minutes, it will increase the number of riders by X and will take Y number of cars off the road.

It also would allow the county to sell the message that they have watched what happened recently, they have listened, and want to ensure they give the public the chance to choose.

Of course there are a couple of potential problems with this. First, is it even possible to break up tax increases on the ballot? From the language of the two laws that enable these tax increases, one says the body “may impose a sales and use tax UP TO 0.25%.” The other says they can impose one of 0.25%. So, it may not even be possible, legally.

Second, I would guess most consultants skilled in putting bonds and taxes on a ballot would call this idea crazy. They would likely say to put as few items on the ballot as possible and hope that the public will “just vote for transportation.” Of course experts told the school district that they should include something with athletics on last year’s bond because people don’t vote for education, they vote for sports. We all know how that worked out.

If the county decides to put transportation taxes on the ballot, is dividing up the taxes a crazy idea? Perhaps. Is it one of the best ways to really know if the public is behind the county’s vision of transportation? Most certainly.