OCR Text |
Show ARTS FEST, A-10 C-1 B-1 SONGS OF CHEER WILL RING IN THE HOLIDAY U.S. ATHLETES SOAR INTO THE SEASON FREE ENTRY COULD BE SKETCHED INTO PLANS JOIN THE LOCAL CONVERSATION COLUMNS, A-14 The Park Record is always looking for letters to the editor. Send your opinions to editor@parkrecord.com FOR TERI ORR, THERE’S WONDER IN FEELING BLUE Park Record. The PA R K C I T Y, U TA H Park Avenue will be one-way road during next month’s festival JAY HAMBURGER The Park Record W W W. PA R K R E C O R D . C O M Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, December 7-10, 2019 Serving Summit County since 1880 City alters Sundance traffic map | Vol. 139 | No. 88 50¢ Deer Valley ready for first turns of season New tech and parking tweaks highlight changes designed to improve guest experience JEFF DEMPSEY The Park Record Deer Valley Resort was slated to open its 20192020 season Saturday morning with 35 ski runs, 16 chairlifts and lingering questions about the effect the Ikon Pass will have on the skier experience. Resort spokesperson Emily Summers said the resort has invested $7.6 million in improvements ahead of this season, and that includes measures they hope will address concerns around over- crowding that popped up last year, the first that Deer Valley was included on the popular Ikon Pass. Those improvements include radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology with new entry gates and electronic ticketing processes. “(These) will allow us to monitor the number of skiers on the hill in a much more accurate way,” Summers said in an email to The Park Record. “In the past, we used a formula to count for season pass holder usage. Now we will know how many guests are on the mountain at any given time. It will also help us monitor traffic patterns for future improvements.” Deer Valley will keep visitors better informed beginning this year, as well, with new digital signage at the resort’s base lodges that will feature TANZI PROPST/PARK RECORD Deer Valley Resort was scheduled to open for the season Saturday sporting $7.6 million in improvements, including the installation of technology that will allow the resort to track how many skiers are on the mountain at any given time. Please see Resort, A-2 Park City officials on Thursday changed the set design for the Sundance Film Festival in January, choosing to make a dramatic alteration to the traffic pattern in Old Town in an effort to reduce the impact of the crush of cars in the neighborhood each year during the event. The Park City Council agreed with a recommendation from City Hall staffers to turn a stretch of Park Avenue into a one-way northbound, or outbound, road for Sundance. The impacted section of the road will run between the intersections with Heber Avenue and Deer Valley Drive. The one-way outbound Park Avenue is expected to shift much of the inbound traffic headed to the Main Street core onto Deer Valley Drive, a road that is seen as better designed to accommodate the Sundance trafALEXANDER CRAMER fic. The Park Record Park Avenue, though, will remain open to two-way traffic for residents Community reaction to the Snyderville Basin holding access passes, which will be Special Recreation District’s proposed property tax distributed by City Hall as Sundance increase was overwhelmingly negative at a public approaches. Two-way traffic will hearing Wednesday, and the Summit County Council also be maintained for others, such decided to delay a decision on the request and Basin as emergency vehicles and City Hall Rec’s budget for another week. buses. City Hall staffers are crafting The council chambers were full at the Sheldon an access-pass plan for others who Richins building as a crowd of more than 50 people will be required to travel on Park listened to Basin Rec Director Brian Hanton’s presenAvenue in both directions. tation about the need for the tax hike, which would be City Hall said the change will rethe district’s first in 15 years. quire an increased police presence, Since 2004, the district has grown tremendously, access-pass checkpoints and the re- TANZI PROPST/PARK RECORD moval of parking from the east side Park City junior Tyler Fisher controls the puck during the Ice Miners’ matchup with Murray Wednesday at Please see Tax decision, A-2 of Park Avenue. The plan is expect- the Park City Ice Arena. The Ice Miners defeated the Spartans 10-0. ed to cost $69,000, according to municipal calculations. Sundance organizers in recent weeks had argued against the concept of turning Park Avenue into a one-way road, saying in a letter to Park City leaders there are a variin,” Leatham said. ety of categories of vehicles that In one case, during a terrible blizwill need access and the one-way zard in 1916, one Norman O’Brien Park Avenue could lead to backups was caught in a cave-in at the Silver elsewhere involving vehicles that King Consolidated mine, resulting would otherwise be on Park Avenue. in a compound fracture of his leg. The letter also noted the Sundance According to the Park City Museum, venues along Park Avenue, such as JAMES HOYT the conditions outside were so bad the screening room at the Park City The Park Record that the mine’s superintendent, in Library. desperation, sent a Park City doctor As Park City’s workers toil, An outline of the alternatives up the line to treat the injured miner shown on Thursday indicated Sun- 50-foot-tall towers guide valuable and bring him back down, buffeted dance recommended retaining traffic cargo through the sky and cut down by high winds the whole time. in both directions on Park Avenue on traffic. The tramways could run into isThe idea to move materials around coupled with increased security on sues that affected those down bethe side streets. The outline indicates Park City’s steep terrain isn’t a low, as well. A failure of the Silver staffers would have recommended crackpot, futuristic vision — the King Coalition tramway caused all Park Avenue parking be removed scene just described took place as of its buckets, which could carry up from both sides under that scenario. early as 1901. to 1,200 pounds of material, to fall Aerial transportation has long The overall plan also includes to the ground, Leatham said. One of turning 4th Street and 5th Street into been employed by local business to them landed directly on a coal shed. one-way roads between Main Street increase efficiency, and an idea reTANZI PROPST/PARK RECORD and Park Avenue in the eastbound cently broached at City Hall to trans- The Silver King Coalition aerial tramway’s steel towers connected the mine struc- Descendants of ore buckets direction, which will block Main port people around Park City with a tures on the mountain to the company’s building in Old Town. Though Park City has undergone a Street traffic from turning into the gondola system to cut down on vehitotal transformation since its foundOld Town neighborhood. Hillside cle traffic is only the latest iteration of the mining era operated from from 1901 to 1952, cost $40,000 ing, from working-class miners’ Avenue, meanwhile, will be turned of an age-old concept that was the 1901 to 1952, and their remains are (more than $1 million in today’s cur- homes to multimillion-dollar ski into a one-way road in the west- ancestor of the chairlifts that are crit- visible today as lines of derelict tow- rency) to build in 1900 and ran 7,000 chalets, it has always relied on one bound direction, or the direction ical to the local economy in the pres- ers that rise above the ski slopes. feet long. The Silver King Coalition sector of the economy that, from the ent day, according to local historian They were a cheaper alternative to tramway’s steel towers can still be 20th century on, has been assisted by Please see Traffic map, A-2 Steve Leatham. Leatham, a Heber a railway, and their purpose was to viewed today on the slopes of Park aerial transit. resident who was born in the Miners ferry valuable ore in large buckets City Mountain Resort, including at One key difference, though, was Hospital and worked on gondolas at down the mountain to terminals in the Town Lift. the speed at which projects were apPark City Resort in the 1960s, first present-day Prospector, Old Town The other two were the Silver proved by local authorities. Accord3 sections • 36 pages began researching the subject while and Empire Canyon, Leatham said. King Consolidated and the Park Utah ing to Leatham, large projects such he was a geography student at the Other essential supplies traveled up Consolidated. These ancestors to the as the mining tramways often sailed Classifieds .............................. C-8 University of Utah, and has given the mountain. It was an infrastruc- modern chairlift weren’t built with through City Hall because “whatColumns ............................... A-14 talks on the tramways as recently as ture that was common to mining the safety of human cargo in mind, ever’s good for the mines” got apCrossword .............................. C-4 September. towns of the western United States. so only in a few instances were the proved and were viewed as essential There were three tramways, the buckets used to carry individuals. Editorial................................ A-15 parts of civic life in the area on par Valuable cargo most well known of which was op“The tramways were dangerous, to Events Calendar ..................... C-6 Please see Gondolas, A-2 Park City’s three aerial tramways erated by the Silver King Coalition say the least, for people to be riding Legals ................................... C-11 Letters to the Editor ............. A-15 Restaurant Guide.................. A-13 Ascent Backcountry Snow Journal will present The Backcountry Skiing Slideshow at 6:30 p.m. on WednesScene ...................................... C-1 day at the Santy Auditorium, 1255 Park Ave. For inforScoreboard ............................. B-5 Slide into the backcountry at mation, visit ascentbackcountry.com/ascent-slideshowSports ..................................... B-1 december-11-2019-park-city-library. the Santy Auditorium Weather .................................. B-2 Ice Miners stick to it Decision on Basin Rec tax hike delayed Residents voice concern about increase at County Council hearing, propose alternatives Gondolas over Park City aren’t a new idea Mining-era tramways carried materials over neighborhoods VISITOR GUIDE |