Park City's proposed bus route to Quinns Junction is on hold after council members said they need more evidence of rider demand before committing a bus to the growing area.
At a Thursday, Oct. 1, work session, the council directed Park City Transit to pause the proposed 10-Pink route, which would have connected Quinns Junction to the A-Fresh Market transfer hub on State Route 224, with stops at Park City Hospital and Studio Crossing. The council did endorse a separate plan to overhaul how winter bus schedules are built, TownLift reported.
Council members questioned whether projected ridership justified the route while Studio Crossing, which has 108 of its planned 380 housing units completed, is still being built out. Some members worried that launching service too early could produce artificially low ridership numbers and make the route look like a failure. Others pointed to future ridership generators, including the National Ability Center and athletic facilities, though City Manager Adam Lenhard told KPCW on Wednesday, Sept. 30, that the road to the National Ability Center and the ice arena near Round Valley is not public and cannot be used for transit.
The full-day version of the 10-Pink route would have cost more than $1,900 per day, with buses running every 30 minutes from 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. A midday-only option was estimated at about $1,000 per day, according to KPCW.
Lenhard said on KPCW's "Local News Hour" on Sept. 30, the day before the work session, that staff saw a need for the route. "As we're looking at traffic patterns and the employment growth out there with the new units coming online at Studio Crossing, it makes sense to try to expand service to that area," Lenhard said.
Park City Hospital told Transit staff it supports fixed-route service, citing workforce transportation needs and a midday gap for patients using nearby clinics and Peace House, according to the staff report presented at the Oct. 1 session. High Valley Transit's commuter routes serve the hospital mornings and evenings, but no fixed-route bus covers the area midday.
How winter bus schedules will change
The bigger change riders will notice this winter is how schedules are built. Transit plans to use data from last winter to adjust bus runtimes based on time of day and traffic conditions, replacing the current system that uses the same scheduled runtime all day.
Under the new approach, some routes will have slightly longer scheduled travel times during peak congestion. Off-peak periods could see shorter runtimes and more frequent buses. Transit also plans to keep individual buses confined to a single route. Buses are assigned across multiple routes under the current system, so a delay on one route can cascade to another.
Schedules will still be published. The change does not mean buses will run on a constantly shifting timetable.
Park City's winter bus service launches in early December and runs through mid-April. No date has been announced for when the new winter schedule will be published or when the 10-Pink route proposal might return to council.
