1. Will Kamas and Wnaship folks ride the bus? The enemy of the bus are independent multiple errands. Drop your kid off at South Summit and then run to the store.
2. HOV lanes on 248 problematic. The narrows poses a problem. Bottlenecks still present themselves
3. Potential concern with CLine Dahle…. There is no good answer for traffic there. Endangers children. All that traffic going past the school.

Depending on where you live in Summit County, you may be familiar with weed control. As a citizen in Summit county, you are legally required to kill your weeds. In some cases, Summit County sprays for weeds itself. In most cases, you are required to kill those weeds yourself. You can go to Home Depot to buy wee killer or you can buy it yourself.

Recently the World Health Organization (WHO) has come under fire for suppressing information that indicates glyphosate likely causes cancer. You may recognize glyphosate under its commercial name, Round-up. It appears that WHO studies shows that glyphosate probably can cause cancer.

By now you probably know that the Park Rag has a negative opinion on the proposed sales tax increases for transportation. However the truth is that most tax increases are passed in Summit County. You have the Park Record coming out in support of it. You have vested interests like the Chamber of Commerce who wants the public to solve their problems. So, let’s give the city and county the benefit of the doubt and say the propositions will pass.

What should you expect?

We’d like to be cheeky and say that you should expect “Transportation to be solved!”… but we all know that isn’t going to happen. So, what should you expect, given what the city and county have published?

Let’s just look at the Voter Information Packet sent out from the County. In a section called “Argument in Favor of Propositions 9 and 10” they have a sidebar entitled Program Elements. This appears to describe what to expect if the propositions pass. Here are the highlights:

• Carpool and HOV lane for buses on 248
• Better school access to the High School, McPolin, and Treasure Mountain
• The Richardson Flat park and ride will finally be regularly used
• The intersection at Bonanza and 248 will be made better
• Bus priority lanes will run from Kimball Junction, all through town, to Deer Valley drive
• The Kearns intersection at 224 will be made better
• There will be remote parking locations made on I-80 and Highway 40
• New remote parking facilities will be constructed to encourage bus and carpooling
• Funding will be made available for transportation improvements in Kamas, Coalville, Francis, Henefer, and Oakley.
• Program will be established that will enable other modes of transportation besides car. Options include bike share, iphone apps, and trail/sidewalk construction
• 50% shorter wait times on bus service
• Redo the Jeremy Ranch interchange to make it transit friendly
• Bus service to the East side of the county
• New bus routed to Kamas, Oakley, Francis, and Coalville to meet commute schedules
• Four additional runs of PC SLC Connect Bus Service daily to meet work schedules

One of the hot buttons around Park City for years is the lack of affordable housing. A development near town called Park City Heights has been chided for its delays in offering affordable housing. Today we read that 300 of Silver Creek Village’s planned 330 affordable housing units may be the first to be developed. So, people are paying attention to the topic and it seems important.

However, what we have always wondered is what exactly is affordable? Is a $500,000 house affordable? Is a $1,500 a month apartment affordable?

It seems one of the typical criteria of affordable housing is that no more than 30% of a person’s/family’s income should be spent on rent/mortgage and utilities.

So, let’s start with what seems to be the going rate for fast food jobs in Park City. That’s about $14 an hour (yes it can be lower). $14 times 40 hours a week times 50 weeks a year equals $28,000 a year or $2,300 per month. Thirty percent of that is about $700 per month (rent plus utilities). So, you are looking for an apartment or a house/condo priced at about $175,000 (if you put 20% down). Neither of those are going to happen around Park City.

Let’s say two people get together (partners, married, or just living together), with two fast food jobs, all of sudden make an apartment look like an affordable option. If we recall, the “affordable” studios as part of the Whole Foods project were estimated to cost about $1500 a month.

According to the New York Times, Sundance’s theme is Climate Change. The NYT says:

“Mr. Redford, who recuses himself from programming decisions, bristles when his festival is seen as having an agenda. ‘We don’t take a position,’ he insisted. At the same time, his top programmers, John Cooper and Trevor Groth, say they are taking a specific stance, one that is political by nature: For the first time in the festival’s history, there will be a spotlight on one theme — global warming and the environment. Their goal? ‘To change the world’.”

We love that they are taking on climate change. We hope Sundance’s movies are being showed in India and China and make a real impact.

That said, do you know how much a CO2 a visitor to Sundance produces in route to Park City?

According to BlueSkyModel, a plane produces 53 pounds of carbon monoxide per mile. Let’s say, our average visitor to Park City flies from Los Angeles (580 miles). That plane has polluted about 60,000 pounds of Co2 (round trip). If there are 100 passengers per plane, that’s about 600 pounds of carbon monoxide (round trip) per passenger. According to Sundance, the 2015 festival attracted 30,000 out of state visitors. That’s about 18 million pounds of CO2 that result from out of state visitors.

We cam across this last

On Monday the Park City School Board met to discuss grade realignment. in attendance was the school board, the Superintendent, and Principals from across the district. If you haven’t watched the meeting, and have an hour or two to spare, we would recommend you watch it.

If you don’t have that kind of time, and most people don’t, we wanted to provide our impressions from the meeting.