Something strange happened last week. Traffic disappeared. We went from S.R. 248 backed up all the way to Quinn’s every morning, and often backed up on to U.S. 40 in both directions, to nothing. Overnight. 

It was some kind of Easter miracle. I understand the drop off in visitors happening this late in the season, but the drop off in traffic seems far greater. I don’t think of the traffic on 248 as being visitors.

Both resorts have cut back their operations. Deer Valley has closed Snow Park and Empire lodges. Park City Mountain has started closing lifts and reducing food service. Demand on the mountain is way down, and there’s no reason to keep the food service operating at mid-winter levels with no customers.  But our terrible morning traffic mess can’t possibly be attributable to the kitchen staff at Snow Park Lodge. .  (After my print deadline, Deer Valley responded to customers’ requests and Snow Park breakfast was back on Friday on a limited scale. That’s responsive and adaptive management. I had already had doughnuts from the Kamas Chevron or I would have had a Snow Park breakfast burrito.)

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School is in session, construction work continues unabated — in fact picks up this time of year — and the cement trucks are not driving any faster. Local skiers are still here because, well, they are local. But the traffic is gone. 

I drove into town at 50 mph on 248 every day last week, not seeing traffic until the light at Comstock, and that was nothing more than a normal stop light. I made left turns across major streets at uncontrolled intersections and business driveways. Left turns! I haven’t made a left turn since December, instead carefully mapping out errands without needing to turn left. That largely meant doing anything I could in Heber instead of shopping in Park City.

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We got our town back. Take a look around. Rediscover why you live here. There are familiar faces everywhere again. It’s wonderful, even if there is dog crap everywhere as the snow melts. Roll back the crowds and chaos of our over-packed, over-capacity, winter season, and when it’s just us, this is a really great place.

Still, if the city is looking for a place to spend some more money on consultant studies, I think a careful look at the sudden and dramatic reduction in traffic is merited. How much of the morning rush is Airbnb traffic from around Jordanelle? Is sticking more hotels out in the bush, like the proposal for a hotel behind Home Depot (for people vacationing on the plumbing aisle?) a good idea? 

The Richardson Flat bus isn’t running. That really did reduce traffic this year. It was often a miserable, cattle car-kind of experience, but it worked. With that out of the mix, traffic is still gone. Can we figure out who was driving there two weeks ago who isn’t driving there now and why? Where did they go?

At the same that time we are choking on success, there is, of course, the looming plan to add even more success to it. The Mayflower expansion is well underway. If you haven’t driven U.S. 40 or looked across the reservoir from either S.R. 248 or S.R. 32, it will be a shock. The base area has been strip mined, with no clod of dirt left where God had put it. 

I keep reminding myself that Deer Valley itself looked like that 40-plus years ago in the early construction stages. It will get finished, eventually, but the size of it means it will be torn up for years in the process.  Since first proposed 40 years ago, I’ve been skeptical of the East Village base area. The terrain looks good, but the low elevation is problematic. The high-density village plan has its challenges. It seems like a redo of the Canyons base — a whole city built for 100 days a year. That’s an issue at every ski resort in the country.

I got a look at the upper terrain this week and feel better about the whole idea. Deer Valley has been opening a couple of runs through the expansion area this week. Ironically, the only part of the mountain that was busy was the part that technically isn’t open yet. Season pass holders were allowed to cross out of bounds and ski a couple of runs that offer views of the expanded area at the top of the mountain. It’s as high as Flagstaff, with exposures similar to Bald Mountain, and will offer some really good skiing when it all opens. The number of lifts involved will take several years to install. The views are beautiful — you can’t see any of the real estate development.

We did the tour on the same day we discovered that Snow Park was closed — no porridge for you — even though we were 40 minutes early because the traffic has vanished. The employee at the gate said closing the lodge was probably a staffing issue. That, of course, raised the question of how they are going to find the employees to double the size of the ski operation, plus base lodge and hotel operations. They don’t exist. 

Unemployment in the area is very low, nobody can hire enough help and there’s no place for them to live. So we’re going to fix it all by doubling the number of employees needed? Do I hear commuter rail to Roosevelt?

It’s going to be a real challenge to integrate that into the Deer Valley operation and still have anything recognizable as Deer Valley left. I hope they can pull it off.  

Tom Clyde practiced law in Park City for many years. He lives on a working ranch in Woodland and has been writing this column since 1986.