Like up to 20,000 who come from the Heber City, Kamas and Silver Creek areas every morning, Piper ran into a three-mile traffic jam on State Highway 248 - Kearns Boulevard - where it meets U.S. 40. The only option he saw was to gun his motorcycle down U.S. 40 to Interstate 80, detour to Kimball Junction and then come back toward Park City from the northwest.
From experience, he figures he saved minutes and a clutch.
City and state road officials are trying to determine how to do the same for everyone approaching Park City from the east, without the detour. It could mean that by next year this historic small town, which isn't so small anymore, will sport a reversible travel lane on Kearns Boulevard - inbound by morning, outbound by night. Or officials may go further, widening the road to four lanes and reserving two of those for buses and car pools.
The city is conducting a joint study with the Utah Department of Transportation and consultants to ease the daily grind. It will only get worse with no action, city Deputy Public Works Director Kent Cashel said. The city's study indicates that the 2.6-mile drive from U.S. 40 to Bonanza Drive on peak winter mornings will take 33 minutes by 2020. It now takes 12 minutes most mornings - four minutes with no congestion.
Motorists agree something must change. But many are unconvinced that adding pavement is the best path.
"The answer is not more cars. It's how to get people in without more cars," said Nancy Pinnell, who lives in a neighborhood off the road's south side.
Pinnell prefers the reversible-lane option, which could be added in the existing middle turn lane of the three-lane roadway with some restriping and removal of a long concrete planter that splits the lanes as they pass a butte. She then would like that third lane to permit only buses and car pools.
Park City vitamin company owner Dan Portwood also likes the idea of working with the existing pavement. He said city leaders should have done it years ago instead of clinging to small-town charm by installing the planter and its mountain shrubbery.
"The reversible lane is the easiest and fastest," he said.
The answer is simpler still to Piper, the motorcyclist. Kearns Boulevard is the access to three Park City schools, and Piper said parents dropping off their kids are the biggest drag on morning traffic. The side streets, Comstock Drive in particular, gum up Kearns when sensors in the roadway change the lights to allow cars to cross to and from the school.
"I don't think they should do anything until they fix the light at Comstock," he said.
The city is building a park-and-ride lot east of the S.H. 248/U.S. 40 intersection and soon will begin bus service from there into town, whether on dedicated bus lanes or with the traffic flow.
