Longtime locals spent much of Monday marveling at the mass of humanity gathered along Main Street and all the way down Park Avenue to City Park. In fact, it would not have been possible to accommodate a crowd of that size without the city’s growing public transit system. According to Park City Transit Operations Director, Destry Pollard, Monday may well have been a record-breaking day.
All in all, the wheels on the bus turned smoothly from pancake breakfast time to post fireworks, but, he admits, there were a few bottlenecks.
The system was stretched to the limit from about 10:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. as people tried to make it in time for the start of the parade. And there were lines at the bus stops again as the action-packed day wound down after the fireworks display at Park City Mountain Resort. Next time, Pollard hopes to round up a few more buses and drivers and kick up the frequency during those critical times.
The good news is that both locals and visitors are embracing public transportation – and non-motorized alternatives like bikes and walking. The Poison Creek trail, for instance, was shoulder to shoulder (and bike fender to baby stroller) as the Main Street festivities spilled down from Old Town into City Park.
Park City and Summit County are taking important measures to expand public transportation and create interconnecting walkways. In the past, those efforts may have been categorized as amenities, but as the city’s allure continues to grow, they are becoming necessities.
Special events, in particular, put a community’s infrastructure and ingenuity to the test. This year Park City and Summit County’s transit system passed with flying colors and hopefully, the bus system gained a few new fans as they bypassed the frustrating and often fruitless hunt for parking in favor of hopping on a bus.
Pollard and his staff are already tweaking the system in anticipation of the next big special events – the Tour of Utah bike race and the Park City Kimball Arts Festival. In the meantime, we suggest that locals download the handy myStop transit app and take a few practice runs. The success of our vaunted special events depends on it.