A flurry of Pinebrook residents recently emailed Summit County and High Valley Transit about snow-covered cars at the nearby park-and-ride by Ecker Hill Middle School.
“And that tells me they haven’t been moved in the last week,” resident Pete Gillwald told the Summit County Council during public comment Jan. 17.
People have been parking long-term at Ecker Hill, so residents say they can’t find a spot. Gillwald has seen spots reserved for High Valley’s own bus drivers blocked too.
The parking problem isn’t a quick fix; High Valley Transit doesn’t have a permanent home right now.
While it’s constructing the Sego Lily Transit Campus in Silver Summit this year, it’s using at least half of the Ecker Hill Park-and-Ride for vehicle storage and office space.
But Summit County Public Works Director John Angell says there are two other problems that the county can and will solve.
“That center lot is about all we have left for public parking,” he said at the council meeting. “So we're going to try and clean that out right in front of the bus stop.”
One problem is that Canyons Village employees have been parking in the wrong spots.
The Canyons Village Management Association initially invested in the park-and-ride, so it pays for up to 50 spaces of reserved parking. Angell says the CVMA is telling employees where they need to park: on the northwest end where the glass recycling used to be.
According to Angell, employees’ cars must be moved by Friday, Jan. 19.
The other problem: there are people parking at Ecker Hill overnight, even though signs say it's prohibited.
Enforcing parking rules isn’t High Valley’s responsibility. It's the county government's responsibility, so Angell says the Summit County Sheriff’s Office is involved.
Chief Deputy Kacey Bates told KPCW deputies are on site as of Jan. 18 to run license plates and contact vehicle owners.
Bates says the sheriff’s office would prefer to have compliance rather than resort to enforcement. But it will ticket and tow as early as next week if it doesn’t hear from the owners.
Gillwald was happy to learn something’s being done.
“If you plan to advocate people to ride the bus, the park-and-ride has to be a little more friendlier than what it is these days,” he said.
Gillwald added his appreciation for the free transit system and says, as a longtime local, it’s a “hoot” watching tourists try to figure it out.
