Sen. John Curtis on Wednesday indicated he will work to toward ensuring the 2034 Winter Olympics are staged successfully in the state.
Curtis visited the Park City area as part of a statewide walk marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The route brought him in view of Park City Mountain, Deer Valley Resort and the Utah Olympic Park, three of the identified competition venues for 2034. The senator on part of the walk made his way along S.R. 224, a state highway that will be a critical route in and out of Park City during the Games.
“Absolutely committed to do my role, and a lot of my role, quite frankly, is bringing in resources. And absolutely committed to make sure that I’m doing my part,” the first-term Republican senator said in an interview with The Park Record.
He added: “There’s specific ways the federal government traditionally has helped. Transportation and security are two of the big ones.”
The comments generally align with the broader thinking in the state regarding the Games. The federal government has traditionally provided monies to places that are readying for an Olympics. Much of the funding typically is provided for transportation and infrastructure projects that can assist during a Games and then be part of a community for decades afterward.
The Park City area is interested in tapping federal funds should they become available in the pre-Games period, but it is unclear what precise projects could be pursued. Leaders are engaged in continuing talks about infrastructure projects, including transportation upgrades, that could eventually be pursued prior to 2034.
A similar strategy was employed in the years before the 2002 Winter Olympics. Park City, notably, constructed the Old Town transit center largely with federal monies. Road improvements at Kimball Junction and Silver Creek Junction were also undertaken.
The Park City area will have an outsized role in the Games, as was the case in 2002. The three competition venues will be bustling, and the community will be crucial to the transportation, security and celebration plans.
The prospects of the availability of federal monies in the years before the Games have been of consequence to the state’s congressional delegation and leaders in local-level government. Timelines, though, are not known. Projects would need to be identified and then monies secured from Washington through the federal process.
Another member of the congressional delegation, Rep. Mike Kennedy, addressed the topic during an appearance at the Marsac Building in late 2024. Kennedy, at the time a congressman-elect who took office shorty afterward, told Park City’s elected officials he was “very happy to be your advocate to fight for every dime that I can bring to this place to build the things that we’ll use for two weeks during the Olympics and then for the next 70 years after that, that our state of Utah and our people can benefit.”
Curtis arrived in the Park City area Wednesday afternoon as part of a planned 250-mile walk across Utah.