After the Park City transportation and transit programs were reorganized during this year’s budgeting process, Park City Transit has hired a new transit manager.
Transportation Director Alfred Knotts—who was formerly the transportation planning manager before the department restructure—says the transportation department is more streamlined now, with staff from parking, active transportation, transit and capital transportation projects all working together.
“Transit before was in its own department in public works and in operations,and then planning was in City Hall with me and with Alexis [Verson] and Julia [Collins], and then parking was also kind of by itself, also," Knotts said. "So, for all of these programs, strategies, policies and projects to really work together, it makes sense to put them under one umbrella.”
Within transit, there used to be a transit quality manager and a transit systems manager. Kim Fjeldsted is now overseeing all transit-related programming and needs. Fjeldsted spent 17 years total at the Utah Transit Authority, working in a variety of positions—most recently as the light rail operations manager. Fjeldsted says she sees a lot of growth and opportunity in Park City Transit due to community support.
"I think that the timing of my arrival and the skill set that I bring is a perfect fit for where Park City is heading in the future," Fjeldsted said. "A lot of electric bus support and environmental concerns that I'm excited to help address those and help address the growth in the transportation needs of the future.”
UTA is a much larger transit district, with service spanning from Utah County to Weber County. Although Park City Transit is a smaller agency, Fjeldsted says she can apply what she learned at UTA about the importance of processes to Park City.
“I can see that the timing is right to instill some of those here, but I think it's also important to keep kind of the family environment and the closeness the department has," Fjeldsted said. "I think UTA had a nice balance of that, quite honestly, even though they were much larger, and I can see that happening here as well.”
Park City has also hired an assistant transit manager as well as a marketing and outreach coordinator specifically for the transportation department.
