The Park City Council has approved an agreement to pay an engineering firm up to $2.1 million for work that will help advance the Re-Create 248 transit priority project quickly.

Under the contract, Horrocks Engineers LLC will provide environmental clearance, preliminary engineering and final design support. Additional funding and future contract amendments to complete the work would be presented to the City Council for approval. 

A city staff report says advancing the project quickly will keep Re-Create 248 on a timeline that supports long-term goals, including implementing milestones before 2034, when the Winter Olympics returns to Utah. Council members gave the city manager authorization on May 7 to enter into an agreement with Horrocks.

The project is focused on transforming travel along S.R. 248 by building on past studies that explore transportation modes, including bus lanes and high-occupancy vehicle lanes. 

“Increasing regional population and job growth in Summit and Wasatch Counties will continue to impact traffic and transit demand into the future,” a post on the project’s website says. “We are hearing from our community that travel times, travel delays and congestion are negatively impacting quality of life. A clear and comprehensive plan will be essential for understanding corridor and community needs, identifying solutions that meet those needs, and developing durable decisions that stick.”

The City Council formally adopted bus rapid transit in January as the locally preferred alternative along the S.R. 248 corridor connecting Quinn’s Junction, Bonanza Drive, S.R. 224/Deer Valley Drive and the Old Town Transit Center. Side-running bus lanes were selected based on a study conducted by the city with the Utah Department of Transportation that evaluated transit performance, cost, feasibility and environmental effects. 

The proposed contract term is 36 months, with two optional one-year extensions at the city’s discretion. The initial amount of $2.1 million is the funding that is currently available in the project budget, which is derived from the Summit County third-quarter transportation sales tax program.

“This contract is intended to allow the City to move promptly into environmental review and design so the project remains positioned for phased implementation and future grant competitiveness,” the staff report says. 

Conor Campobasso, senior transportation planner, told the councilors that $2.1 million is “not going to get us the whole way.”

“We’re working on getting some federal dollars, some state dollars, as well as county dollars,” he said.

The staff wants to get started on this next phase of the project as quickly as possible, Campobasso said.

“This is a pretty big project, and we’re trying to do it in a pretty tight timeframe,” he said. “But there may be opportunities to actually separate pieces of this project, fund them with different revenues, build them sooner rather than later.”

He gave as an example a park-and-ride lot being developed on the 22-acre Gordo parcel along S.R. 248 that is owned by the city. 

“Packaging it as part of the 248 project is very important because we’re planning on using that to leverage federal funds, but also we need it sooner,” Campobasso said. “So being able to build that before Re-Create 248 goes through is a huge benefit.”

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The How We [=] Move art exhibit at the Kimball Transit Center officially opened Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2017, with an opening reception and artist talk by Kevin Arthofer. The event walked attendees through the creation of the artwork and how it was brought to life. (Tanzi Propst/Park Record)

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