The new 400 space parking lot at Ecker Hill is making good progress while improvements to the interstate exits leading to that lot won’t get started in earnest till next year. KPCW’s Leslie Thatcher has more.
Summit County Public Works Director Derek Radke has worked for more than a decade to get the improvements done at the Pinebrook and Jeremy Ranch exits off Interstate 80. Meanwhile the Kilby Road improvements have been on the to-do list for less than a year.
Radke says part of that has to do with some of the road bumps in designing the two interchange exits…
“It was my hope that the Jeremy project, the Ecker project and Kilby project would all be going at once and make one big mess, but some design issues arose on the Jeremy project -- just wetland mitigation, some structure design and timing issues - things like that. So that project we still hope will be started late fall with some off-road utility relocations. One of the structures under the on ramp I believe is outside the roadway I hope to get that started. So, anything outside the roadway we hope they’ll get started on this fall. And then the bulk of the construction will happen in 2019 and complete in October of 19.”
Given the existing traffic and the wait to turn left off the interstate now, we asked Radke if he was concerned about drivers being able to make left hand turns when even more cars are using the exits…
“You know its certainly not going to be ideal, but we don’t’ expect the park and ride to fill day one., so it will take some time- just like a new bus service, like anything - it’ll take time to get people to use it. I don’t expect major traffic differences.”
The parking lot will be open to anyone. Eventually, half of the lot will be used by those allowed to through the CVMA – or Canyons Village Management Association which has anted up $5.5 million for the nearly $9 million project.
“With our arrangement with the CVMA, they are funding the bulk of the projects – about $5.5 million worth and they get 100 spaces to start with and there’s another point in time when they get up to 200 spaces. And the project is designed so there’s an area that can be segmented off when that 200 spaces is need. Right now, the CVMA is not wanting us to cordon that off so it’s basically open to anyone who wants to park and ride.”
The rest of the project is being paid for by money collected from the transportation sales taxes.
Those who use the free to park lot he says will be able to jump onto an electric express bus to get into town along the existing route.
We intend to extend the electric express to the park and ride, so we expect 10-minute frequencies. I think we have to add a bus or two to maintain those headways. But it will start at park and ride go to the Kimball Junction Transit Center, back to the Canyons and on into Park City, like it does today.”
Summit County Public Works Director Derek Radke. The project will be substantially completed in August but no promises that it’s finished by the start of school August 23rd
