After the Park City Council heard nearly two hours of public feedback earlier this month criticizing the gridlock around the base of Park City Mountain Resort, the resort and the city announced a slew of changes to help with traffic flow ahead of Presidents Day.
Those included more guest shuttles, a new traffic pattern around the resort base, and signage discouraging through traffic on Three Kings and Thaynes Canyon Drive.
Thaynes residents were particularly outspoken about resort traffic driving through their neighborhood to bypass congestion on SR 224.
Ellen Henreicksen lives on Payday Drive and says the signage has helped, especially with people speeding on residential streets. But she says the signage has also compelled her and many of her neighbors to take the long way home instead of the direct route on Silver King Drive.
“As you exit the parking lot and you drive by the First Time parking area from the mountain resort, there’s a ‘no left turn’ sign, and it’s up during certain periods of time, but that has prevented me from getting to my home in the Thaynes neighborhood, yes,” she says.
Hendricksen says she would support something like a dashboard pass that shows residency in the neighborhood.
In contrast, fellow Thaynes resident Kenneth Levine says the signs have done little to help traffic on residential streets.
“My sense is that nobody is paying any attention to these signs with the exception of occasionally somebody just looking at their phone and they hit them,” says Levine.
Levine and others have also questioned the city’s ability to restrict traffic on a public road. Critics say since their tax money was used to build and maintain them, everyone should be allowed to drive on those streets.
Park City Police Chief Wade Carpenter says the traffic measures are justified. He says backup on residential streets could prevent emergency vehicles from accessing the neighborhood.
“As law enforcement, we have to evaluate the public’s access and egress and if we see that as a potential hazard and we can’t get the emergency responders to those areas, that’s a real problem," Carpenter says. "At times, we have to take these types of actions to make sure we protect that ingress and egress.”
The traffic circulation plan at the PCMR base is expected to be in place through the end of the ski season.
