Park City Police increased dump truck inspections on Marsac Avenue after a crash in July, but Police Chief Wade Carpenter says that pulls resources away from other important areas of town. The Park City Council wants additional options to improve safety on the road.
Park City Police Chief Wade Carpenter told the city council last week that there has been an officer stationed on Marsac Avenue every day since a dump truck crashed through the Deer Valley Drive roundabout last month.
He said officers have made several stops of trucks that are not in compliance at the brake check area across from the Ontario Mine, but a shortage of officers is making the efforts unsustainable.
“Our biggest issue is resources and manpower as it comes to being able to enforce that,” he said. “We’re down three officers, we’re not meeting our minimum staffing just to cover calls for service right now.”
The city is exploring alternatives to take some of the stress off of the police department.
Marsac Avenue is also SR 224, and jurisdiction actually falls to the Utah Highway Patrol, so the city cannot impose steeper fines for offending trucks. Officials have submitted an emergency request to UHP for more enforcement, signage, and safety facilities.
Dave Thacker is Park City’s chief building official and told the council that altering the city’s construction mitigation plan does provide them an enforcement option.
“Adding a line item in that if there are violations, whether they be a truck that’s not properly inspected and licensed, or whether that be a driver, or whether that be they’re bringing soil off the mountain that they shouldn’t be, et cetera,” Thacker said. “We’re looking at adding line items in there that the first violation is a stop work order for 24 to 48 hours, depending upon what it is. Second violation will double that or triple it, and the third one is an imminent stop until we can mitigate what’s going on.”
He added that stopping work for a period of time could affect a developer’s bottom line, which could serve as an incentive.
Councilor Steve Joyce said that may force contractors operating faulty trucks to get their equipment in better shape, or lose business.
“You do that enough times, and that subcontractor either goes out of business or no developer wants to hire them or they start passing back the costs to the truckers, and that’s actually within our role, so I think we can start doing that more aggressively,” he said.
Thacker added that he has talked to the developers currently working in the Empire Pass area and said they all indicated a willingness to add amendments to their construction agreements.
“I have not had any pushback about them agreeing to sign an addendum or something that would enhance their current construction mitigation plan to ensure the safety,” said Thacker. “There’s not one person up there that wants to see this happen again either.”
The City Council will receive an update on the Marsac enforcement in six weeks.