Make your voice heard on the I-15 plan
The Salt Lake Tribune has an excellent in-house editorial dressing down the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT), both for their 19th century solutions to 21st century transportation problems, and for their disregard for community concerns, opinions and values.
Their latest idea is one that has the potential to turn the Wasatch Front into what people hate about L.A. We are facing an expansion that would make I-15 (from SLC to Farmington) 18-20 lanes wide. Even UDOT admits that this plan won’t solve the congestion issue that we’re looking at as the area continues to develop and grow. As the Tribune editorial puts it, “the sad fact about widening highways is traffic always grows to fill the available space.”
Between our issues with dust from Great Salt Lake, an extreme increase in emissions from the Inland Port, and beautiful but pollution-trapping geographic location, the LAST thing Northern Utah should be focusing its resources on is increasing vehicle traffic. The money allocated towards fixing the issue could be utilized to encourage public transportation that would save residents time, money, lungs and heart.
We echo the Tribune’s message with this editorial – Tell them what you really want.
The public has until January 13 to weigh in on the I-15 plan at https://i15eis.udot.utah.gov/, by email at i15eis@utah.gov or on paper by writing to UDOT at 392 East Winchester Street, Ste. 300, Salt Lake City, UT 84107. Tell them you choose None of the Above.
The editorial also mentions the city’s plans for 2100 South. “While you are in a commenting mood, have a look at the plans Salt Lake City has sketched out for a really busy section of 2100 South, from 700 East to 1300 through the redeveloping Sugar House neighborhood.
City staffers, noticing that much of that segment of pavement needs replacing anyway, have been noodling around with ideas that include making the roadway more of a pedestrian/cyclist-friendly boulevard. Options include reducing the street from four lanes to three (one of them a left-turn-only lane), removing on-street parking and favoring walking, biking and taking the bus.
The city’s research indicates that most of the auto traffic along that stretch of 2100 South is bound for that neighborhood, mostly for shopping and eating, and is not just passing through on its way somewhere else. If that is the case, 2100 could be another example of a place where efforts to reduce traffic, not make futile gestures to allow it to go faster, would be the right approach.”