Park City seeks input on Little Kate Road pathway plan

Park City is asking residents to weigh a choice with daily consequences on Little Kate Road: build a physically separated 12-foot path for walkers and bikers, or rework the street itself to slow cars and improve visibility. The decision affects one of Park Meadows’ busiest neighborhood corridors, where school trips, MARC traffic and commuter cut-throughs all collide.

City data show why the corridor has become a flashpoint. Little Kate is a two-lane, 20 mph road with bike lanes in both directions, a sidewalk on the north side and a roadway width of about 38 feet. Near the Park City Municipal Athletic & Recreation Center, traffic can reach about 6,000 cars a day, while the 85th-percentile speed is about 28 mph, above the posted limit. In a 24-hour count in September 2025, staff recorded 107 pedestrians and 172 bicyclists near the MARC.

Sarah Hall, a Park City parent who rides the route with her daughters to McPolin Elementary School and the MARC, said the ride feels manageable on Holiday Ranch Loop Road from S.R. 224 but becomes unsafe once cyclists reach Little Kate, where there is no barrier between riders and moving traffic. She supports the city’s original concept for a 12-foot-wide multiuse path on the north side because she sees it as a continuous, physically separated connection for families and school traffic.

Others want a different fix. Katherine Fagin told the City Council the money should go toward reducing speeding and improving visibility instead of tearing up the road. She suggested tighter intersection curves and better striping could address some of the same problems without a major reconstruction.

The city’s planning materials say the existing right-of-way is too tight to safely provide comfortable sidewalks on both sides and still keep adequate bike facilities. Park City says the north-side sidewalk already provides direct access to the MARC and sits on a Safe Routes to School corridor, and the 12-foot path was identified as the safest option within those space limits.

The debate has moved through several checkpoints. City materials say the project reached 90% design completion in winter 2025, then Monitor Drive was removed after a Feb. 3 City Council discussion. At a Feb. 24 community meeting at the MARC, residents also weighed Holiday Ranch Loop traffic calming, route 20 transit feedback and bus-stop improvements. On April 30, council members asked staff for alternatives that better separate user groups and address vehicle speeds, and the city delayed summer construction after more than an hour of public comment.

Funding is largely tied to a $2.2 million Federal Transit Administration grant secured in 2023, part of a broader Park Meadows active-transportation package that also touches Lucky John Drive and citywide bus-stop upgrades. Park City says it is improving about 65% of bus stops through 2027. The next public review comes as the city tries to answer a narrower question than before: not whether Little Kate needs attention, but whether its biggest problem is mixing people together or letting cars keep moving too fast.