| Salt Lake City |
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| GER |
12 |
16 |
7 |
35 |
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| USA |
10 |
13 |
11 |
34 |
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| NOR |
11 |
7 |
6 |
24 |
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| CAN |
6 |
3 |
8 |
17 |
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| RUS |
6 |
6 |
4 |
16 |
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| AUT |
2 |
4 |
10 |
16 |
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| ITA |
4 |
4 |
4 |
12 |
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| FRA |
4 |
5 |
2 |
11 |
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| SUI |
3 |
2 |
6 |
11 |
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| NED |
3 |
5 |
0 |
8 |
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Transportation success has officials smiling
Carpools, buses, lots help make system work
By Jerry D. Spangler and Donna Kemp Spangler
Deseret News staff writers
PARK CITY — With one day of Olympic competition at three local venues under their belts, state and local officials were feeling delightfully smug about how well the transportation system is working.
"It was a remarkably calm day," said Lisa Cliva-Ward with Summit County. "There were not times when traffic was backed up more than at 5 o'clock on a work day."
Officials cautioned, however, that Saturday was not a typical day. First of all, the weekend meant that very little local traffic was fighting traffic jams to get to work.
"Today was not indicative of what we will see during the week," said Melisa Miller with the Utah Department of Transportation.
The system worked Saturday, they agreed, because people carpooled to the park-and-ride lots (cars averaged 2.7 people each), and more people were using buses than planners predicted.
But how well the transportation system worked depended on who you talked to. It seemed to work fine for those who drove their own cars to park-and-ride lots and then caught shuttles to venues or into Park City.
But those thinking they could travel from Salt Lake to Park City for a little celebrating and shopping were disappointed and somewhat angry. Lynn Yocom and Kathy Puccinelli, both visiting from Montana, tried to get from their room in Woods Cross to historic Main Street in Park City.
They first had to wait 90 minutes for a bus to Salt Lake City (buses were on limited weekend schedules), and once they got there they could not find anyone who knew how to get from Point A to Point B. Even the UTA customer service office had no idea how they were supposed to get to Park City, Yocom said.
They eventually caught rides with friendly Utahns headed that direction.
"We could have driven, but we were afraid to," Puccinelli said. "Every pamphlet we read said don't drive your car."
Very few complained about lengthy delays, and many praised the shuttle system. But some said it just didn't make sense to have massive buses capable of holding 50 or 70 people running from one destination to another
with only three or four riders.
"Instead of buses, they could be using vans," said Derek Daley of Spanish Fork, who visited Olympic Park Saturday.
For Games organizers, the problems were minuscule, perhaps even trivial. The weather cooperated perfectly on Saturday, reaching a balmy 30 degrees compared with early morning temperatures hovering near zero.
Myles Rademan, spokesman for Park City, said the sunshine deceived some spectators at the women's moguls event at Deer Valley into not dressing warm enough, prompting some calls for help.
There were also some complaints about the town's fire whistle that goes off at 10 every night. Out-of-towners didn't know about it and thought it was an air raid siren. The whistle has now been silenced.
Some have complained that music on Main Street was too loud.
Officials have also dealt with one case of ticket scalping and two merchants dealing in unlicensed merchandise.
"We're working through some of those rough spots," said Rademan.
Unlike opening ceremonies that brought out scores of protesters for almost as many causes, Rademan said the first day of competition evoked little social commentary, although there was one exception.
The only protester, he said, was a 6-year-old girl holding a hand-made sign: "Female ski jumpers in 2006."
E-MAIL: spang@desnews.com; donna@desnews.com
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February 11, 2002
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