Park City leaders want to learn whether traveling by car during the Sundance Film Festival in January was a heartwarming love story.
Or a horror flick.
City Hall has posted a survey delving into festival-related issues, including, importantly, someone’s experience navigating the roads. The survey opened less than a month after the festival ended. It incorporated a widely criticized package of changes to the traffic flow in Old Town likely causing lingering displeasure.
Sundance returned as an in-person event in January after two consecutive moves online due to the pandemic. The closely related issues of traffic and transportation have long been crucial to the overall logistical plan of Sundance, and a series of steps were taken this year designed to improve the traffic situation in the Old Town core. They involved several one-way restrictions, including on Main Street, and other measures.
But traffic quickly overwhelmed Park City during the opening weekend of Sundance. The backups were especially bad on Main Street and Swede Alley even for Sundance as lines of cars were repeatedly seen inching forward. One driver for a limousine service, Sundance traffic veteran Eli Weingarten, during the festival described the conditions on Main Street at the busiest times as being “a self-perpetuating loop of doom.”
City Hall on the first Sunday of Sundance made alterations to the traffic blueprints in response to the deteriorating conditions. The traffic appeared to ease significantly after the opening weekend.
The survey inquires about traveling in Park City during Sundance, with the questions about that topic appearing to be some of the most notable. The municipal government asks survey takers to rate the ease of travel in a car during the first five days as well as the final six days. The ratings range from “Excellent” to “Poor.” Officials also want to learn about the ease of travel by transit during the two time periods.
The survey seeks information about safety, parking services, the access to someone’s neighborhood and City Hall’s outreach. It also requests information about municipal services that “went well” during Sundance and whether someone suggests alterations to municipal services during the festival in 2024.
Officials plan to compile the results and the feedback from the survey and submit the information to Mayor Nann Worel and the Park City Council. A debriefing about Sundance with Park City officials and festival organizers is scheduled in late April. The annual debriefing is usually an early step in the logistical planning for the following year’s event. The sides will, with near certainty, address the concerns about the traffic flow that arose this year as they discuss the plans for 2024. The planning for the festival in 2024 is expected to stretch for months and continue toward the opening of Sundance next January.
Sundance, particularly the opening weekend, is usually the busiest time of the year in Park City, rivaled only by the stretch between Christmas and New Year’s. Traffic can be awful, even after numerous modifications to the logistical plans over the years, as large crowds of film lovers, celebrity gawkers, the entertainment media and corporate sponsors converge on Park City for one of the top festivals on the international circuit.
Some people who live in the Park City area see Sundance as a chance to be in the crowd of a star-studded world premiere while others consider the festival to be an extraordinary economic opportunity. There are some, though, who instead are leery of the large crowds and traffic.
The survey is scheduled to expire on Feb. 26. The survey is available at: https://polco.us/n/res/vote/park-city-ut/2023-sundance-film-festival-2?pn-method=open.