There is wonderful news for anyone who has stared at the taillights in front of them on S.R. 224. Park City has apparently solved traffic. Not by creating another meaningful route into town. Not by dramatically expanding intercept parking. Not by separating construction, resort and commuter t raffic. We’re building a really, really good bus lane. And the current estimated project cost is $119.2 million. Welcome to the Bobsled Express. Or as many motorists may eventually know it: “That lane next to me.” To be fair, Park City has a legitimate transportation problem. Thousands of workers commute here. Ski traffic can be brutal. Special events overwhelm the system. Continuing to funnel more cars into a geographically constrained mountain town isn’t sustainable. But somewhere during years of studies, consultants and government meetings, we seem to have landed on a remarkably convenient assumption: People are driving because the bus isn’t good enough yet. Make it faster. Give it a dedicated lane. Build nicer stations. People will abandon their cars. Some absolutely will. But before betting roughly $119 million on that behavior, perhaps we should spend an afternoon watching who actually drives S.R. 224. Take the Deer Valley visitor who has flown to Utah with skis, boots, helmets, children and dinner reservations. They’ve rented an SUV and paid a small fortune for their vacation. Would they like to reorganize their day around public transportation? Maybe. Others will look at the Suburban and say, “We’re driving.” Then there’s a demographic Park City sometimes seems uncomfortable acknowledging: Wealthy people own very nice cars. If someone bought a $200,000 Mercedes, Range Rover or Porsche, there is at least a reasonable possibility they intend to drive the damn thing, even to Deer Valley. We don’t have to like that behavior. Transportation planning simply has to acknowledge that it exists. People value autonomy. They like leaving when they want. Affluent people are particularly capable of paying for convenience. Then there’s the other Park City. Every morning S.R. 224 carries F-250s, Sprinter vans, electricians, plumbers, landscapers, carpenters, HVAC crews and contractors towing trailers. These people aren’t driving because nobody told them about the bus. The truck is part of their job. Perhaps the Bobsled Express will eventually include a lumber rack. Until then, the contractor carrying ladders, compressors, tools and materials will remain in the F-350. And therein lies the great Park City paradox. We approve and build more homes, hotels, restaurants and resort infrastructure. That requires more construction workers, service employees, deliveries and visitors. Then we’re surprised when all those humans appear on S.R. 224. Our response is an enormous investment designed in part to persuade people not to drive into the community whose growth continually creates more reasons to drive into it. To be clear, this is not an argument against buses. Park City needs excellent public transportation. Worker transit is essential. And the buses aren’t empty. High Valley Transit says routes that will become the Bobsled Express are already averaging roughly 4,700 boardings per day in 2026. That actually raises a more interesting question. If those routes already generate 4,700 daily boardings, what precisely is the marginal transportation benefit taxpayers are purchasing for roughly $119 million? The important metric shouldn’t simply be ridership. It should be: How many cars does this project actually remove from S.R. 224? That’s where the public conversation should focus. High Valley Transit is the project sponsor, with UDOT, Summit County and Park City among the government partners. Federal and state taxpayers are heavily involved, too. Project materials identify tens of millions of dollars in federal and Utah transportation funding. This isn’t one politician’s project. It is the product of years of planning across multiple agencies and administrations. Which means all of them should welcome accountability for the result. When the Bobsled Express opens, publish a public scoreboard. Show peak-hour vehicle counts. General-purpose travel times. Transit travel times. New transit riders versus people who already rode the bus. Park-and-ride utilization. And most importantly, the estimated number of automobile trips actually removed from S.R. 224. Then compare those results with the assumptions used to justify the investment. Because if a roughly $119 million project substantially reduces automobile traffic, gets workers into town faster and makes S.R. 224 function better? Fantastic. I’ll buy Bob a beer. But if we’re standing on S.R. 224 in 2029 staring at the same Suburbans, Mercedes, work trucks, ski racks and construction trailers while an electric bus cruises past them in its dedicated lane, someone in government should be willing to say: “Well, it turns out people still wanted to drive.” Mack Donoghue Park City The post So just stop driving? appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less