Park City… It’s the traffic, stupid.

In 1992 Democrat strategist James Carville popularized the adage, “It’s the economy, stupid.” His point was that in the upcoming election the Democrats should focus on the economy. The problem was that, up until that point, Bill Clinton’s campaign was all over the map. It wasn’t focused.

Similarly, in Park City, we’ve known that our corner of world is getting more crowded. People love this place. Yet, this love (and additional people) impact everyone who is already here. We have too many cars on the road.

So, how do we reduce the number of cars on the road?

Simply put, we reduce the number of parking places. You can’t park; therefore, you don’t drive.

We’ve witnessed this. Do you plan on skiing fresh powder at PCMR? If you are there after 9:15, forget about it. Don’t even drive there.

Plan on skiing the Canyons on a Sunday and driving? You had better get there by 11 AM.

There is no parking. When you expect there is no parking, most people won’t want to drive.

You plan your routine around alternate forms of transportation.

A recent commenter told us that change is inevitable. That is true.

They decried the term NIMBY and all the other epitaphs that are used to degrade people who are concerned with growth in Park City. They said, “It seems you are a fan of the horizontal approach aka sprawl aka NIMBY, aka increased traffic, decreased walkability, increased resources used, increased pollution, less climate change resilience.” They recommended that we support developments “which are mixed-use, have limited parking, and which would allow people to walk or take the bus since they are in a part of town that is well served by transit.”

We’re not sure all that will work given the reality that is the Snyderville Basin. However, what we can get behind is No Parking.

Speaking of NIMBY, we are seriously concerned with Summit County buying the Cline Dahle parcel between Burt Brothers and Jeremy Ranch Elementary. The county is allegedly looking at building a transit oriented development that will mix “affordable” housing with bus stops. What would it take for us to support that development? Zero parking spaces. Our concern has always been that a housing development there will increase traffic and endanger children. If there is no parking then the number of additional cars traversing Rasmussen Road will be minimal.

What about the increased entitlements requested by Power Corp for the Woodward art Gorgoza? That is the development where in 1999 they wanted to build an outdoor recreation facility (which was approved). Now, they want to build an indoor recreation facility the size of Walmart. Do we care that the building is 50 feet tall and next to the road? We are sure some people will but our concern is traffic along Kilby road. So, to gain our support (for whatever it is worth), just get rid of the parking lot. Let people bus there.

Then let’s move to the Park City School District. This week the Park City School District talked about the proposed renovations to the Kearns campus. Now the proposed bond for adding on to the high school, building a 5/6 school, and purchasing land is likely over $100 million. This includes finding a new space for a second high school. What if they removed parking at the high school, McPolin, and theDistrict offices? Talk about improved utilization of resources, by requiring all students to ride the bus (or be dropped off), it seems a lot of land would be freed up. Would that provide additional space for building (should it be needed in 10 years)?

What we wonder is if the city and county need to find a way to limit parking in any new development. Currently, it is almost the inverse. In the county, there are a minimum number of spaces that are attached to any new development. Instead, we wonder if there should be a maximum. Should we limit parking to both encourage the use of different forms of transportation (and or cars).

The question is, as citizens of Summit County and Park City, what impacts you most? Today, is it the number of people here or the amount of traffic?

We’d wager it’s the traffic. Bring in 10,000 more houses with no traffic and would you care? Likely not. The tax dollars would pay for all sorts of services.

Tell the Canyons Management Association that they can expand, but in exchange the lower parking lot is going way. There is no parking.

Is it a perfect solution? No. We’d have to build more park and ride infrastructure.

That sounds like a good thing.

It seems as if our leaders want their cake and eat it too. That leads to solutions that are half baked and have little chance of success.

If we want less traffic, limit parking as much as possible. Don’t charge more for it. That’s regressive. Just limit it. Everywhere we can.