Main Street might become Mane Street during the holiday season.
The Historic Park City Alliance, a business group encompassing Main Street and nearby streets, wants City Hall to allow a horse-drawn carriage to travel on a few public roads in the Main Street core during the holidays, an attraction that the group says will draw people to the shopping, dining and entertainment strip.
Park City officials have not yet approved an arrangement allowing the carriage, and the Park City Council on Dec. 16 is tentatively scheduled to consider the idea.
Alison Butz, the executive director of the business group, said her side wants the City Council to allow the carriage to operate between Dec. 18 and Dec. 29, with the exception of Christmas. That stretch of the calendar is normally a busy period for Park City as skiers arrive for their holiday vacations. The business group wants to make the carriage rides available between 3 p.m. and 10 p.m. each day.
“We want people to come up, to experience Main Street, to make new holiday traditions,” Butz said.
The business group wants the City Council to approve a route for the carriage involving lower Main Street, Heber Avenue and Park Avenue. The route could be expanded to include a section of Main Street uphill from Heber Avenue as well as Swede Alley and 5th Street, which is the street outside the Main Street post office. The expansion would depend on whether a horse is able to complete the extra distance over and over again, Butz said.
Both the business group and the carriage operator, a firm known as Rocky Mountain Outfitters, say Main Street is not too steep for the horse to climb. Butz said the horse is able to pull the carriage up Main Street at a trotting pace. She said the horse-drawn carriage moves at a speed similar to that of a vehicle on Main Street, and a carriage driver is able to pull to the side of the street to let traffic pass if need be.
Representatives from the Police Department and the Public Works Department accompanied City Hall’s special-event manager and Butz on a recent test ride of the route with the carriage. Butz said the horse did not encounter difficulties with the steepness of Main Street during the test. There will likely be questions raised, though, over the next week about the carriage’s effects on traffic and the routes.
Prices have not been set. Butz said she wants the City Council to approve a pickup spot for the carriage at the corner of Park Avenue and 7th Street. The carriage can comfortably hold four adults and two children, Butz said.
The carriage would be the first regularly scheduled appearance of a horse on Main Street since the 2002 Winter Olympics. City leaders at that time allowed the Budweiser Clydesdales onto Main Street daily as part of the Games’ festivities. Main Street was closed to vehicle traffic, though, during the Olympics, and the Clydesdales did not have to maneuver alongside traffic as the horse that will pull the carriage will need to.
The request to allow the carriage on Main Street comes as the business group continues its long running attempts to keep the street competitive with other commercial districts at Kimball Junction and inside Park City, with places like Redstone and the Bonanza Park district becoming players in recent years. The carriage would follow shortly after the takedown of last summer’s dining decks outside of several restaurants, which were another bid for the street to remain competitive.
The owner of Rocky Mountain Outfitters, Joe Loveridge, said a horse-drawn carriage would not become a traffic hazard or cause a slowdown in traffic on Main Street. He said there is an “allure” to horse drawn carriages during the holidays, mentioning their draw is similar to that of sleigh rides.
“The ambiance — people think it’s romantic,” he said.