A couple of weeks ago, county council member Roger Armstrong related the problems he had hooking onto the bus system from his home in Park Meadows.
He told fellow council members there needed to be a re-look at the transit system.
What he’s aiming at, he told KPCW this week, is getting the system to build from the advancements it’s made in recent years.
Armstrong told KPCW that his remarks weren’t motivated by an issue with Park City, the county’s partner in the area transit system.
“We’ve made some changes to the transit system that were very positive. We made a number of changes generally. We’ve got the express system, we’ve got the e-bike system which I do believe is taking cars of the road. Now that we’ve got that express system in, I’ve been saying for some period of time, we need to start looking at that as the center-piece of the transit system. So if we have routes running from one end of the basin Kimball Junction into Park City with dozens of stops, I’m not sure that makes a lot of sense. Why don’t we shorten the time periods on a smaller regional basis and get people to an express stop that will get them close to where they want to go. It may end up requiring an additional change but if all of those many regional pieces are able to connect into it. I just don't think we’re doing it as efficiently as we can.”
He said the onus is on the county to address the issues he’s concerned about.
“Part of my concern was, the county led on some of these issues a couple of years ago. I think it’s time for us to sit down and not simply rely on Park City and require Park City to come up with the answers. We’ve got our own end of it to think about. We’ve got the Ecker Hill parking lot coming on. It’s being moved along pretty quickly and we’re going to have 500 spaces there that we can park people. Can we get people from Pinebrook and Jeremy to join the system? How do we do that? It’s time for us to anticipate having that additional piece in and start coming up with solutions.”
He agreed that one motion—using smaller buses to serve sectors of the system—is an idea worth looking into.
“I think Park City took a look at that a year ago when they talked about trying to do the micro-transit. That resulted in a lot of discussion about the types of vehicles that they were trying to use. It shouldn’t have taken away from the concept that micro-transit is what we need to work on. How do we implement that? Do we do that with the hotel-style smaller busses or mini-busses that we use for the dial-a-ride. It’s an appropriate discussion to have.”
Finally, agreeing with the Park City manager Diane Foster, he said he’d like to see a new direction for the Joint Transportation Advisory board (JTAB) created by the city and county.
“Historically, since I’ve been on the council, JTAB has been mostly a one-way information system. Council members from Park City and Summit County meet with the transit folks on the JTAB committee. The transit people inform the council members what they’re doing, council members have an opportunity to ask questions. It has not been a true problem-solving discussion, kind of group. That tends to happen at a more granular level within the city council, within the county council and staff. And then the county council and city council have come together a number of times to have those discussions about how to implement things.”
