Summit County Council Person Roger Armstrong on a Tunnel to Park City

This morning Roger Armstrong was on KPCW with Lynn Ware Peek. She asked him about the Mountain Accord and a proposed tunnel to Park City. His response was one that is likely shared by many of us in Park City.

Ms Peek: Most recently we have heard this notion of a tunnel coming through from Cottonwood Canyons to Park City. What are your concerns?

Mr Armstrong: Cost is a big one. Mountain Accord brought experts in for a roundtable meeting and cost was one of the big show stoppers for them. They don’t see the cost benefit. The big plan is [something like] $6 billion. That sounds like a lot. I’m concerned… I view Park City as having a terrific brand. It really is a shining light in Utah and the ski industry generally and I’m concerned we will lose business if we have a connection … and this came up with a panel of experts…I’m concerned, if we have a number of day skiers from the Wasatch Front, they probably don’t do a lot for us. If you’ve skied PCMR this year, I think the addition of the Epic Pass has caused some crowding that I don’t think we’ve seen before. It’s more akin to holiday weekends that we’ve seen in the past. And I think adding to that probably doesn’t help us and if we degrade the visitor experience whether its inability to get into restaurants, or they have to ski a crowded slope, or traffic as we saw with ‘carmageddon’ … if you degrade that experience I think people spend their money somewhere else. I’m not saying we should abandon the process but we don’t have enough information right now.”