The traffic story on Main Street during the Sundance Film Festival in January is again expected to involve a cast of Parkites, festival-goers, taxi drivers, rideshare operators and others.
But it appears there is a possibility they could be removed from the scene in festivals after the 2024 edition.
City Hall staffers have drafted an update covering issues related to the transportation plans for Sundance in anticipation of a Park City Council meeting scheduled for next Thursday. Although broad, the report touches on the concept of creating a vehicle-free zone along Main Street during traditionally the most jammed opening days of Sundance.
The update from Jenny Diersen, the economic development program manager for the municipal government, acknowledges the crush of the first days of Sundance, a Thursday through Sunday. It says “our system can be temporarily overwhelmed by vehicles circulating, dropping off and picking up, and searching for parking spaces,” particularly in the Main Street core.
Diersen briefly touches on the prospects of a Main Street free of vehicles during the opening days of Sundance. She says “it is not feasible to close Main Street” to traffic during Sundance in 2024, since discussions have not occurred with a range of interest groups that would be involved in what would be a dramatic alteration to the logistics of the festival.
“In the future, we will continue to analyze the possibility of creating a vehicle-free Main Street for the Festival’s first several days,” the update says, noting other events that involve Main Street closures in some fashion. “However, this evaluation will take time and fundamentally differs from other events such as the Park City Kimball Arts Festival, Park Silly Sunday Market, or Savor the Summit.”
The update also concedes: “To be fair, closing Main Street is a controversial approach, and one that we would only approach out of an abundance of caution after working with” Sundance, emergency officials, transit operators and others. The Historic Park City Alliance, a group that represents the interests of businesses in the Main Street core, had not been briefed about the prospects of a vehicle-free street by the time the update was published. It says City Hall intends to discuss the topic with Sundance and the Main Street group after the festival in 2024.
Park City officials, festival organizers, Main Street businesses and others would need to consider numerous logistical matters before a decision is made to close the street to traffic. Issues that would likely be raised include emergency access to Main Street, access for the transportation industry, the possibility of traffic seeping into surrounding Old Town and access for vehicles with direct ties to the festival.
City Hall and Sundance over time have made alterations to the traffic and transportation plans in an effort to reduce the impact. There have been varying degrees of success, but complaints are still commonplace. The traffic during Sundance’s opening days is usually some of the worst of the year.
In January, during the first in-person Sundance in three years, there were especially bad traffic jams in the Main Street core even by festival standards. The backups occurred regardless of City Hall introducing a package of alterations to the traffic flow in Old Town designed to better manage the vehicles.