The era of free parking in Salt Lake City is over—embrace it. 

• Courtesy of Visit Salt Lake
• Salt Lake City ‘s light rail (Trax) and bike share (GreenBike) make it easy to navigate downtown.

Editor's note: The following article was originally published as part of City Weekly's 2024 City Guide, out now in print and available online.

There are many Olympic cities around the world, but only 10 that have hosted the games more than once. Salt Lake City is all but certain to join that list in 2034, inching the Wasatch Front metro area ever closer to a global big-boys' table alongside heavy-hitters like Paris, Los Angeles, London and Tokyo.

A great city is a great thing, and Salt Lakers have much to look forward to as we level up throughout the next decade. But with growth comes growing pains and perhaps none will be felt as keenly as traffic congestion, particularly for those who cling to suburban-style, door-to-door driving.

Travel to, in and around Salt Lake City need not be a hair-pulling affair, even when we welcome the world to our big-little town. By embracing the following rules of the road, you'll be ready to hit the streets today, tomorrow and for years to come.

Rule No. 1: Park in a garage
Ideally, street parking in a city should be relatively expensive, say $5 per hour, while garage parking should be relatively cheap, say $2 to $3 per hour. Salt Lake City tends to get this backward, and that's a big part of why it feels like there's insufficient parking even though nearly one-third of downtown's total footprint is buried under asphalt.

A moving car is relatively productive—delivering workers to jobs, customers to retailers, children to schools, etc.—but a parked car is wasted space. Garages help by consolidating the dead land consumed by inactive vehicles into a single, multi-level structure, making it more effective for storage than the curb zones that should be turning over fairly frequently, adding buzz and vibrancy to the street.

When you drive into downtown, spare yourself the headache and just accept that you'll be parking in a garage (and spending a few bucks to do so), then walking a short distance to your final location. You'll find that eliminating the guesswork of trying to score a space on the street pays dividends to your mental health compared to your friends who arrive late after spending 30 minutes circling block after block, rage boiling over.

Rule No. 2: Take the train to events and the airport
If you're headed to a game at the Delta Center or University of Utah, or to a convention at the Salt Palace, or to a concert at Gallivan Plaza, or to so many other, major, road-clogging events, don't even bother driving, at least not all the way into town.

With the significant caveat that Trax and FrontRunner don't run as late or as often as they should (and FrontRunner doesn't run at all on Sundays), you're often going to be better off riding the rails than driving your car, especially if your destination is within a half-mile of a train station. And this is a rule that will only get stronger as the Olympics approaches, with the opening of new train stations and higher service frequencies.

Don't have a train near you? First, call your state Senator and complain, then use a car to get to the nearest station—many of which include free park-and-ride lots—or to a station outside the downtown core, like in Central 9th, Fairpark, Ballpark or even South Salt Lake. It's much easier to find a parking spot a little further away and the extra step of catching a train can save you time and stress in the long run.

Flying in and out of Salt Lake? Long-term parking is a bad deal considering that the Trax Green Line drops you off right at the airport terminal. And depending on when you arrive/depart (there's no overnight train service ... yet), the Green Line will get you downtown in a snap and a connection with FrontRunner at North Temple Station gets you as far north as Ogden and as far south as Provo before you need to call an Uber.

Rule No. 3: Walk or bike your shortest trips
When your trip is less than 1 mile, consider walking. When your trip is less than 3 miles, consider cycling. On an ebike, most anything under 5 miles can be done on two wheels, and the GreenBike rental fleet increasingly offers electrified models.

Just as important, if there are shops, restaurants and parks closer to home than the ones you typically patronize, consider adjusting those routines to invest more time and money into your neighborhood's amenities.

The city hasn't made this easy—downzoning in the '80s and '90s and decades of incessant highway widening all but wiped out the very concept of a corner store. But bit by bit, we're turning back the clock on those mistakes with mixed-use zoning, multi-use trails, neighborhood byways with traffic calming interventions and transit-oriented neighborhood hubs. To see where this is working, go check out neighborhoods like 9th & 9th, Central 9th, 15th & 15th, Rose Park, Marmalade and the Avenues. To see where this is not working, go check out "downtown" Sugar House.

Bonus Tip: Ditch the freeway
Not a rule—and your mileage may vary—but consider avoiding the interstate for trips within and even between cities. My son splits his time between Murray and the west side of Salt Lake City. After a few rounds of the Interstate 15 gauntlet, I decided to stick to Redwood Road, and my trips and my driving mood both improved. Now, I pretty much use the freeway only when I'm crossing the county line.

Freeways are funny things: They work great until something goes wrong ... and then they barely work at all. Today's 15-minute trip could take an hour tomorrow, and you often won't know until you're stuck in gridlock, inching toward the next possible exit.

By comparison, the stop-and-go of a surface highway might take a little longer on average, but with more reliable consistency and with more ability to divert to other streets if a collision shuts traffic down. Once you adjust, you may realize that a leisurely drive suits you just fine.

Mapping apps push us toward the fastest possible routes but for most trips, the difference is a matter of minutes, what we might call the margin of error. Sometimes the "cost" of extra time is worth it when those minutes are of a higher quality.