Park City’s calendar forecasts 66 peak traffic days this winter, including all weekends from Dec. 1 to the end of March.
Special events are also listed, including the Sundance Film Festival in late January and the FIS World Cup at Deer Valley in February.
Park City Transportation Operations Manager Andrew Leatham said this year’s list has almost 30 fewer days than last winter’s calendar. He said they removed Mondays and Thursdays if they weren’t part of a holiday weekend or special event.
“What we saw operationally was that we had staff out - police officers and parking officers and security - on these Mondays and Thursdays, and did not see as great of an impact on these days as we did on the weekends," Leatham said. "So I think we realized that we can take and shift those resources. Shift police resources and parking resources and everyone else to actually focus more on really busy weekends that are centered around holidays and special event periods.”
The transportation department has a variety of new measures planned to reduce congestion, particularly during the evening rush hour.
They will add more signage on Deer Valley Drive about the right turn-only lane approaching Bonanza Drive. Starting Park City Mountain opening day, Nov. 17, barriers on 14th and 15th streets will eliminate cut-through traffic to and from the resort.
Leatham said they plan to pilot new traffic patterns in December to help on the busiests days of the season. That includes banning left turns from Deer Valley Drive onto Bonanza Drive to drive resort traffic to state Route 224. They also plan to prohibit left turns from Sidewinder Drive onto state Route 248.
Eastbound Kearns Boulevard’s right lane will become right turn-only as it approaches Bonanza Drive. Leatham said that’s to fix bottlenecks at busy times thanks to the right turn-only lane approaching Sidewinder Drive.
The city has identified 21 days as “max peak” days, including the Martin Luther King Jr. and Presidents Day weekends. Leatham said the changes require approval from the Utah Department of Transportation, which they hope to get later this month.
