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Park City braces for possibility of skiers overwhelming downtown parking

Inbound traffic in Park City backs up earlier in the 21/22 ski season. Traffic has long been a point of frustration in the community.
Park Record file photo

City Hall is bracing for the possibility that large numbers of skiers and snowboarders headed to Park City Mountain could leave their vehicles in municipal lots in an effort to avoid paying for parking at the base of the resort itself.

Park City Mountain in the 2022-2023 ski season will introduce a paid-parking system at the base of the Park City side of the resort.

City Hall in a report drafted in anticipation of a Park City Council meeting scheduled on Thursday addressed the resort’s new paid parking and how it may relate to public parking.



The report, written by parking manager Johnny Wasden, notes “the growing trend of increased year-over-year visitation and the announcement of paid and reservation parking at Park City Mountain” as it discusses the efforts “undertaken to plan for and mitigate day-skier overflow parking impacts.”

“Last winter, we saw an increase in skier parking on and around Main Street public parking areas. In addition, we anticipate impacts from the implementation of Park City Mountain’s paid and reservation parking program,” the report says.



The acknowledgment by the municipal government of concerns that the resort’s new parking regulations could have impacts on public lots is an intriguing sidebar to overall preparations for the upcoming ski season, which is scheduled to start later in November with the opening of Park City Mountain followed by the scheduled opening of Deer Valley Resort in December.

Parking in Park City during the ski season has for years been a challenge, as drivers headed to the slopes, particularly Park City Mountain, have searched for spots outside the base area lots that are under the control of the resort itself. Some of the drivers head to Main Street and surrounding residential streets and opt to take the Town Lift onto the slopes. Others have left their vehicles outside the Park City Library and walked to the lifts while still others have been seen over the years parking in privately held lots close to the resort base.

Main Street wants to ensure parking in the core remains available to customers of the shopping, dining and entertainment strip rather than being taken by skiers and snowboarders headed to Park City Mountain.

It has seemed likely City Hall and others would need to address the introduction of paid parking at Park City Mountain prior to the start of the ski season since there are the prospects of large numbers of drivers searching for a location to park where they are not required to pay. The report by Wasden discusses the possibility of an alteration to the City Hall parking program in the Main Street core “in order to respond to the potential for day skier parking to overwhelm the downtown parking supply and preserve parking for Main Street visitors.” There is also expected to be significant resources put to guarding neighborhood streets in the area of the Park City Mountain base.

Mayor Nann Worel and the City Council are scheduled to address the overall parking plan for the winter at a meeting on Thursday starting at 6 p.m. at the Marsac Building. The elected officials are expected to take public input. The meeting will also be broadcast online at http://www.parkcity.org.


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