The possibility of someday creating an aerial transit system in Park City, long seen as a measure that could combat traffic, has emerged as part of City Hall-led discussions about the future of the Main Street core.
A committee seated by Park City leaders is considering wide-ranging concepts that, if pursued, would be designed to enhance Main Street as it attempts to remain competitive amid commercial development elsewhere in the area.
One of the ideas that has been mentioned is the construction of a gondola route. Aerial transit via a gondola system has been discussed off and on in Park City since at least the 1990s, but the concept has never advanced beyond preliminary talks or studies. There have been questions over the years about the funding mechanisms for construction, operations and maintenance as well as potential destinations and routes.
A group known as the Main Street Area Plan Committee in mid-August discussed a gondola route between the Main Street core and Deer Valley. The notes from the meeting in August and a City Hall staff communications report provided limited details about the concept. There is an interest in Main Street businesses better tapping customers in Deer Valley, though.
The staff communications report indicated there was interest in “exploring” the possibility of a gondola linking Deer Valley with the southern reaches of the Main Street commercial district. The separate written summary of the August meeting showed the Main Street Area Plan Committee received information about prior work regarding aerial transit and spoke about alternative alignments.
The written summary says earlier “transportation projects had rejected the idea of building a gondola from Park City to Deer Valley” via the Deer Valley Drive corridor based on “a lack of space in the right-of-way.”
“The committee wondered whether it might be possible to connect to Deer Valley via a different route over Royal Street and city-owned greenspace,” the summary says. “This would help high-value customers travel from Deer Valley to Main Street, and could connect with the new Gondola to Deer Valley East Village.” It also describes a “potential to build a gondola from the Sandridge parking lots to Deer Valley over green space and Royal Street, including a concept for how to connect the station to Main Street.”
The summary seems to describe an eventual vision for a gondola system that could carry people between the Main Street core, through Deer Valley and to Deer Valley East Village off U.S. 40 in Wasatch County. Deer Valley East Village is under development and is designed to be another base for the resort.
Deer Valley Resort has said it is crafting blueprints for internal routes that would effectively connect Snow Park, Silver Lake Village and Deer Valley East Village via a gondola system. The design of the system, Deer Valley said earlier in 2024, leaves open the possibility of becoming a stop on a broader gondola network, if it were to be built someday.
A gondola route linking Deer Valley with Main Street has been seen as a likely segment of any wider system since they are two of the most important destinations in the community. Other possibilities that have been mentioned as stops over the years include the Park City-side of Park City Mountain and City Hall-owned land off the intersection of Kearns Boulevard and Bonanza Drive that could eventually become important to the overall transportation system.
It would be years before the first segments of an aerial transit system could be built outside the confines of private property like the mountain resorts. Further studies would be required into routes, decisions would need to be made about equipment and agreements between various parties would need to be negotiated. City Hall, the County Courthouse, the Utah Department of Transportation and the two mountain resorts would each likely have a role, depending on the precise routes.
Some see aerial transit via a gondola system as a transportation improvement that could reduce traffic in the Park City area. The thinking holds that drivers could be intercepted via parking lots or garages well outside Main Street and the mountain resorts. They would then board an aerial transit system to travel to those destinations, cutting some of the traffic into and out of Park City.
There would also be funding questions with the likelihood of an aerial transit system linking the various locations pushing into the tens of millions of dollars. Although timelines regarding any talks about aerial transit are not known, Park City and Summit County leaders have shown an interest in tapping monies, including transportation-related federal funding, that may become available as the area prepares for the 2034 Winter Olympics. If that is the case, leaders could want to make decisions well before the Games to allow time to build any improvements prior to 2034.
The talks about the Main Street core are ongoing and it is not clear when Park City leaders will make decisions about whether to pursue any of the concepts the committee has considered during its work. Discussions involving Park City’s elected officials, the committee, Main Street businesses and rank-and-file Parkites are upcoming, with a schedule running through December.