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Park City Council To Discuss SR 248 Environmental Assessment

The Park City Transportation team will present an overview of the State Route 248 environmental assessment to the City Council Thursday. 

The environmental assessment for SR 248 has been more than two years in the making. The corridor project’s focus is to alleviate traffic on 248, where the two lanes in each direction of traffic narrow down to one. But it was only a month ago that a request went before Council to add two more months to the service contract for the environmental assessment, to incorporate bus and bike lanes into the project. Park City Assistant City Manager Matt Dias says because the Utah Department of Transportation is involved, earlier versions of the assessment focused a lot on improving the experience for car drivers—something that contradicts Park City’s traffic goals.

“Mayor [Andy] Beerman, Diane Foster and Alfred Knotts—sort of our leadership on this project—have doubled down with the state to make sure that this is a really transit-first methodology, and that just wasn't coming as clear to us in all the sort of interim iterations that we were seeing," Dias said. "So we went back to the mat with these folks, and we said, 'we are very appreciative of your collaboration and partnership, but this really needs to be transit-first.'”

The assessment has cost the City $1.6 million. The corridor project is expected to cost $60 million and will largely be supported by federal funds, which is why the environmental assessment is necessary. For the City to put funds into the initial planning and design process—because nothing about the project has been finalized yet—Dias says the project moves up on UDOT’s priorities list.

“This is a sound, smart investment in the long term, if we determine that we want to move forward to pay for sort of the upfront planning costs," Dias said. "In doing so, we wanted to make sure that they were very representative of who we are as a community—we are not just interested in widening lanes for the sake of widening lanes.”

In the end, UDOT decides what happens with the SR 248 project. But Dias doesn’t think UDOT will ignore Park City’s desire to accommodate different transportation options.

“If we weren't supportive, I can't imagine that UDOT would want to represent to the federal government that somehow they were going to usurp or override a local jurisdiction’s wants and needs and culture," Dias said. "I can't imagine a scenario where they were going to take dollars and apply them towards Park City instead of, for example, applying them to Holladay or Draper or St. George, to a community that doesn't want those resources applied.”

The City Council is scheduled to discuss the SR 248 project during a work session on Thursday at 5 p.m. The 30-day public comment period for the project ends July 11, with the official public hearing on June 26 at Treasure Mountain Jr. High from 4-6 p.m.

Emily Means hadn’t intended to be a journalist, but after two years of studying chemistry at the University of Utah, she found her fit in the school’s communication program. Diving headfirst into student media opportunities, Means worked as a host, producer and programming director for K-UTE Radio as well as a news writer and copy editor at The Daily Utah Chronicle.
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