Any ideas about how to deal with traffic in Park City?

City Hall has scheduled an open house next week to gather input about long-range transportation issues, a chance for Parkites to discuss a broad set of topics that have been perplexing for years.

The open house is part of an exercise as officials craft transportation blueprints for the next three decades. City Hall staffers and consultants hired by the municipal government for the project will be available.

The event is scheduled on Tuesday from 4:30 p.m. until 6:30 p.m. in the Eccles Center lobby at Park City High School.

Andrea Olson, who is with the Midvale-based consulting firm InterPlan, said topics that could be discussed on Tuesday include road expansion, widening public transit and adding pedestrian-bicyclist routes.

She said the consultants and City Hall are open to ideas involving the Park City entryways and smaller streets inside the city.

No formal presentations are planned, and the organizers suggest people spend approximately 30 minutes at the open house. A release announcing the open house indicated that visual aids showing simulated traffic scenarios will be available. People will be asked to cast votes about transportation issues, the release said.

People who live in Park City or who commute to jobs in Park City have long complained about the traffic in the city. The traffic is normally worst during the ski season, when commuter traffic peaks at the same time skiers and snowboarders descend on Park City each day.

Traffic can especially be bad on streets like the S.R. 248 entryway, particularly from Quinn’s Junction to Prospector, as well as on Park Avenue and Bonanza Drive.

There have been numerous ideas to cut the traffic over the years — some that seem plausible, like reworking the lanes on the S.R. 248 entryway, and others that are far-fetched, such as building a light-rail track into Park City. City Hall’s pedestrian and bicyclist improvements, meanwhile, have been undertaken in an effort to reduce traffic.

For more information about the open house, contact Park City Engineer Matt Cassel at 615-5075 or [email protected] or Olson at 801-307-3400. Her e-mail address is [email protected]. More information is also available on InterPlan’s website, http://www.interplanco.com/current-projects/parkcity.