Snow. It seemed like a miracle, but there was actually snow on Wednesday. Measurable, plowable, skiable snow. I never thought I’d see that again. It was a spectacular day. It wasn’t enough to fill in the iceberg moguls, and the light was very flat in the storm, so the only reasonable decision was the trees and chutes. A day of skiing to remember in any season, but in this otherwise snow-less winter, it was a wonder to behold.
I’ve fallen into an unfortunate habit of “doom-scrolling” between different news stations while driving into Park City in the morning. Nothing is really improved by listening to the news out of Ukraine, but if feels wrong to listen to “Willie’s Roadhouse” country classics. Zelensky is an inspirational leader. It will take more than inspiration to overcome persistent shelling of residential areas. He’s asked the rest of the world to help get him some aircraft to improve the odds. Poland has a fleet of MiG jets, and the Ukrainians have experience flying them. The only question seems to be how to get them transferred to Ukraine without leaving Poland’s fingerprints on them.
Poland suggested moving them to a U.S. or NATO base in Germany, and handing them over to the Ukrainian pilots there. The U.S. didn’t like that idea because of the fingerprints issue (which seems kind of a stretch since we have shipped billions of dollars’ worth of munitions into Ukraine; we are hardly a neutral party). Anyway, NATO said it didn’t want to be responsible for the jets, and Poland doesn’t want to give Russia any reason to start attacking Poland. So the jets are parked and the shelling in Ukrainian cities continues.
What if Poland just happened to carelessly leave a bunch of the planes on the runway, fully stocked with munitions and full tanks of fuel, and somebody just came in and found the keys in the ignition and stole them? Might be the Ukrainians, but just as easily could be somebody else. It’s the sort of thing Moldavan teenagers might do.
That’s the kind of random thought that crossed my mind while sitting at a dead stop on the tailings pond road. The traffic has been terrible lately. Sunday was about the worst in recent memory, with everything backed up in all directions. There was fresh snow Sunday — quite disappointing, really, but enough to get every Epic Pass holder in Salt Lake circling around town looking for a parking place. Wednesday had a little less of that, and a lot more of our normal inflow of workers who can’t afford to live here, so they commute in. There are no good transit options, so our workers and customers arrive by car. It took me 1 hour and 4 minutes to cover the 26 miles from my house to the Deer Valley parking lot. Better than half of that was the last 5 miles. And that included a doughnut stop in Kamas.
The city has a parking lot that holds close to 800 cars at Richardson Flat. It’s been there for years. They plow the snow every day and keep the lights on at night. A few truckers seem to spend the night there, and lately there has been a lonely looking COVID test tent. With the war on, nobody gives two hoots in hell about COVID anymore. But otherwise the lot is empty. Through the decade or more since it was built, the excuses have been that there wasn’t a light to let buses make the left turn on to S.R. 248, so it wouldn’t work. Then the light was installed. Then there wasn’t a bus lane on the shoulder, so the buses would be stuck in the same traffic. Then the bus lane was built.
The only excuse left is that the city is terrified to do anything. They will put it on a planning cycle, and hire learned consultants from afar to study it. The experts will say it’s in the wrong place, and it kind of is, but it’s also at a location where you can build a huge, ugly parking lot and nobody will complain about it. Try that anywhere else in the county.
So the conclusion is that the traffic jams and parking problems are a deliberate choice because it is easier to do nothing than take the risk that it doesn’t work. Of course there is a legitimate question whether the city or PCMR should be paying for the necessary fleet of shuttle buses to make it work. I’d vote for PCMR on that one. They are the ones who sold more Epic passes than they have the ability to accommodate. It’s not the public’s obligation to solve their business problems. I don’t know what it costs to rent a fleet of buses, but at $229 for a lift ticket, they ought to be able to raise the necessary cash in under an hour.
It could happen. But don’t bet on it. The city is advertising for bids to build a new park-and-ride lot that somehow squeezes into the U.S. 40 right of way between the frontage road and the on-ramp. It’s smaller, and requires a bunch of new traffic controls in an intersection that already doesn’t work. Compared to Ukraine, these are trivial problems. But they are also solvable, and have been for several years.
Tom Clyde practiced law in Park City for many years. He lives on a working ranch in Woodland and has been writing this column since 1986.