In December 2024, I presented to the Park City Council a May 2020 aerial transportation study by S.E. Group that examined potential gondola routes into and through Old Town. I had received the report during my time on the Planning Commission and was stunned to learn that Councilor Ryan Dickey — liaison to the Main Street Small Area Plan and now a candidate for mayor — had never heard of it.
Two months later, during a February 2025 meeting, Dickey admitted he still hadn’t read the report nor contacted S.E. Group to better understand a transportation alternative he frequently promotes.
At the June 26 council meeting, aerial transit options were again discussed — all routes, with the exception of Richardson Flats, connected Main Street and Deer Valley’s Snow Park.
Mayor Worel opened the conversation by questioning the need, since reliable bus service already exists. Dickey, however, doubled down, stating these gondola alignments are key to making his vision for Main Street — including hotels on Swede Alley — financially viable. He repeatedly pushed his favored alignment from the Brew Pub lot to Snow Park, calling it the “most feasible.”
Yet feasibility remains in serious doubt. A city transportation staffer noted, “The further we are from the transit center, the more difficult that connection is going to be.”
Councilor Parigian asked whether gondolas that bypass Old Town’s transit center serve a real purpose — or simply function as “amusement.”
Dickey persisted, prioritizing a route that starts at the Brew Pub lot — far uphill from transit and widely known to be geotechnically compromised due to past use as a burn pit. Serious development there has long been deemed cost-prohibitive.
Dickey’s disregard for research, facts, community sentiment, and his fellow councilors has been a recurring theme — from Snow Park to Bonanza Park to Main Street. The Brew Pub gondola is just the latest example of his pushing big, expensive ideas without proven benefit to locals or small businesses. Whether it’s hubris or allegiance to outside interests — developers, resorts, financiers — the community deserves to ask: Who is he really working for?
Integrity and institutional knowledge matters. Vote for experienced proven leadership in the coming weeks.
Vote JK for City Council and together we can fix it.
John “J.K.” Kenworthy
Old Town