If you think it’s bad now…

If you think parking and traffic are bad in Park City now, just wait until UDOT has its way with Kimball Junction. Parking and traffic have one cause: cars, and UDOT’s plans for Kimball Junction do nothing to address this pressing issue.

UDOT’s plan for the Junction is to widen the roads and increase car capacity. This, in turn, will only allow more cars to enter the Park City area, leaving the newly designed Junction as traffic-choked as before, which will only beget more calls to widen the road, which will only lead to more cars, etc… This concept, known as “induced demand,” is well known to urbanists and planners worldwide, but UDOT, in all their myopic glory, seem not to have taken note of the lesson.

If adding traffic lanes reduced traffic, why do cities like Houston, Atlanta, and Los Angeles have endemic traffic issues despite having 14-lane freeways running through and around those cities?

The only way to alleviate traffic in Kimball Junction and Park City is to make it more difficult to drive a private automobile into town, not less. HOV lanes, dedicated transit lanes, and properly priced roads are the only solution, not continuing the buffet of increased traffic capacity.

Micah Kagan

Kamas