Park City Council members have delayed a decision on whether to allow construction to begin on a park-and-ride lot at Quinn’s Junction until they can gather additional information about the project.
The City Council voted 3-2 at a March 31 meeting to continue discussion at another time about whether to authorize City Manager Matt Dias to enter into a $3.5 million contract to build the lot.
City Councilors Ryan Dickey, Jeremy Rubell and Tana Toly were in favor of waiting. City Councilors Max Doilney and Becca Gerber wanted to proceed.
The three in the majority, who took their seats in January, are the newest members on the City Council.
The proposed plan for Quinn’s Junction calls for 465 parking stalls to be built on the lot, which would be between U.S. 40 and the Old Highway 40 frontage road north of S.R. 248. The city was awarded a $3.9 million federal grant for the project.
Dickey and Rubell said they want to review a traffic flow study at the busy intersection and see more information about ongoing costs, such as maintenance expenses.
“I feel I don’t have enough information to support it,” Rubell said. “We don’t have a solid financial picture.”
Other concerns were opposition to the project expressed by two Summit County Council members at a March 29 meeting and the fact that the site of the project is near the Richardson Flat park-and-ride lot, where many of the 750 stalls are often empty. A common complaint is that the lot is difficult to access.
Dickey said he wants to see better support from the county and also questioned whether enough drivers would use the Quinn’s Junction lot to justify its cost.
“I don’t see any analysis that says it will,” he said.
Toly questioned whether a new lot will make a dent in traffic. She said drivers will not go to Richardson Flat now and they won’t want to park at the Quinn’s Junction park-and-ride, then get on a bus and travel a mile and half to Park City.
If the city is trying to change behavior, “then let’s change behavior and get people into Richardson Flat,” Toly said.
Gerber said building the Quinn’s Junction lot will not solve the entire traffic problem but it will serve some of the needs of the community.
Incentives and disincentives also are needed, according to Gerber. She said if mountain resorts implemented paid parking, that would create a disincentive for people to drive their cars into town.
Doilney – who described the Richardson Flat park-and-ride as “sketchy” at night – said the fact that so many people are moving into the region makes it more important to build the new project at Quinn’s Junction. He said it’s not a perfect solution but “we don’t have perfect solutions.”
“If we kick the can on this one, then I don’t want to hear any complaining about traffic for the next four to five years because we are trying to come up with solutions to solve the problem that we have today and it’s not getting better,” Doilney said.
If the contract had been approved, construction would have started in May, weather permitting. Park City staff members had anticipated the project would be completed in the fall, making the Quinn’s Junction Park and Ride available for use in winter 20022-2023.
Dias said the lot now will not be ready this year. The city will have to begin a new bid process later for the work because the proposed contract with Wardell Brothers Construction expires in a few weeks, he said.
The company was selected from among five bidders that were seeking the contract to build the lot for an amount not to exceed $3,452,472.