Utah Open Lands has requested $10,000 from Cottonwood Heights City in order to kickstart the expansion of their Transit to Trails program. The Transit to Trails program is a transit service that shuttles visitors to Bonanza Flat (a popular tourist area for nature viewing and leaf peeping) from Park City at no cost. This program helps gets more cars off the canyon road as well. 

The money would help the Transit to Trails program broaden their reach in terms of adding more stops into neighboring cities, running during different weekdays instead of purely weekends, and even into the autumn months. 

Visitors are asked to park their cars in the Munchkin Lot located on the Main Street of Park City. They can then schedule a pick-up and drop-off time. Shuttles (which are 15-seat Sprinter vans) then accommodate that transit as they run on a loop stopping at three different pick-up/drop-off locations. 

“It’s completely free to the user,” said Utah Open Lands Director of Community Engagement Alli Eroh. “The shuttles are pet friendly and they do have room for bikes.” 

The Transit to Trails program began in 2021 after a few noteworthy events put a focus on the wildlife area into motion. In 2017, Park City residents gathered together in opposition of potential development proposed within the wildlife area. Park City partnered with Utah Open Lands to pull a $38-million bond for an easement protecting the area. In 2020, the pandemic inspired a 300% increase to recreation areas throughout the state. 

(Utah Open Lands launched the “Leave It Loved” campaign in 2020. They ask visitors to wildlife areas to channel their inner stewards of the land and take responsibility for trash removal and to take only photos so the area and its wildlife can be loved for generations to come.)

After seeing success in the Transit to Trails program over the last few years, Utah Open Lands would like to expand their service. The expansion would run into Cottonwood Heights and some of the other surrounding cities like Sandy. 

“We are requesting 10 grand for the program to expand into the Wasatch Front,” Eroh said. 

Eroh mentioned that most visitors to Bonanza Flat are from the Wasatch Front. The data has been and can be pulled from third-party software tracking numbers from cell phones as people are traveling. 

They would also like to run the program from July until October. Eroh mentioned that even though July might seem late in the year, there is still snow in the mountain until July. 

“If we did the entire summer, it would be between 60 and 75 grand,” Eroh said. 

Utah Open Lands focuses on providing transit up into and through the canyon during September and October for the autumn colors. Eroh mentioned that Bonanza Flat has over 1,500 acres of trails and wildlife habitat. 

“The area is popular for leaf peeping because it’s on the top 10 lists for leaf color changing,” Eroh explained. 

This season, Utah Open Lands will run the Transit to Trails program from Thursdays until Sundays. They hope to expand beyond weekends into weekdays in the future as well. 

“We will be going out to Salt Lake County and other cities to request monies as well,” Eroh said. 

The Central Wasatch Commission has already put some money into kickstarting the expansion of the Transit to Trails program. Utah Open Lands is also looking for corporate sponsorships to help offset some of the costs. λ