Bicycle races force Saturday street closures
August 20, 2010
Several streets in Old Town will be closed for much of the day on Saturday for the Tour of Utah bicycle races.
The streets will close at 6 a.m. and City Hall expects them to reopen by 8 p.m. The closures include:
Main Street
Heber Avenue
Swede Alley
Park Avenue between Heber Avenue and 7th Street
Recommended Stories For You
Traffic on Park Avenue from Heber Avenue to King Road will be restricted to one-way traffic southbound, or uphill.
There is a series of other races scheduled earlier in the day as well, starting at 9:30 a.m., according to the slate published on City Hall’s website.
City Hall is expecting large crowds on Saturday, with organizers telling Max Paap, who handles special events for City Hall, as many as 12,000 people could watch if the weather is nice. He said the course could be lined with spectators three or four people deep.
Spectators will be directed to park at Park City Mountain Resort, Deer Valley Resort and the schools complex on Kearns Boulevard. Free buses will shuttle people to and from Main Street from the parking lots. People who want to park in the China Bridge garage should use Marsac Avenue for access.
Paap said a free valet for bicycles will be available at the Town Lift garage at Main Street and 9th Street.
Park City will have a wider role in the Tour of Utah than in 2009, when the organizers started a stage of the race in Park City with three laps on Main Street. Paap said Main Street was closed down to drivers for approximately one hour last year.
The closures on Saturday will likely be the most extensive of the year to accommodate a special event. Organizers of other events like the Park City Kimball Arts Festival, the Park Silly Sunday Market and the Sundance Film Festival do not require a wide a road closure.
For more information about Saturday’s events and the street closures, visit City Hall’s website, http://www.parkcity.org, and select the ‘Tour of Utah (in Park City)’ link.