Dave Stewart did not go into depth about the controversies and disagreements that have followed local discussions about possible routes in a transportation corridor that would cut through the west side of the Heber Valley, but he did warn the Heber City Council on Tuesday that local governments need to find their way to agreement on corridor plans.
The state’s legislative session will begin Jan. 16. Stewart — a lobbyist for a group of governments including Heber City — said that while federal funding has resulted in a large surplus of state funds over the past two years, this year likely will be different.
“There’s certainly a slowdown now,” he said. “The good news is it’s not nearly as severe as was anticipated.”
Still, budgets will be tighter and that tightness could translate to an even longer wait for those worried about heavy traffic congestion through Heber City.
“Inflation’s gone crazy. Transportation infrastructure projects are all 20%, 30% and 40% overruns,” he said. “Every project at UDOT is seeing that.”
Though Department of Transportation’s draft environmental impact statement regarding the project and four route possibilities is supposed to be released early this year, it has already been pushed from its initial expected release in fall 2023, and Stewart predicted it will again be delayed until this summer.
Stewart said he believes the less state funding available this legislative session and a stretched project time frame for the corridor might be a good thing, as it provides more time for UDOT and the community to finalize bypass plans before trying to fund them.
Still, he noted UDOT has a lot more projects than resources, and if the department sees local governments are unable to agree on projects or their details, that could make those less likely to win state funding.
“One of the key things will be that the local governments, local entities are all on the same page. Obviously, there’s different alignments and I know people are nervous about some of those and where it’s going to go,” Stewart said. “If the city or the county or others are pushing back, then that just gives UDOT a very easy excuse to shelve it and just leave it there for until people get on the same page.”
Stewart said if there are other communities in need of UDOT’s resources and the department doesn’t need to sit in the middle of disagreements over road placements, it will likely prioritize those.
“They’re not here to steamroll local governments. They largely want to see those as partners,” he said.
Pedestrian accidents with automobiles, growing traffic times on Heber City’s Main Street and concerns over semis traveling through the center of the city as they lack other options have resulted in public consensus that some type of corridor is needed, but that consensus has not extended into conversations about where exactly the corridor should go.
After developing possible alternatives to address the situations, UDOT discarded about 20 of them “because they were not reasonable and practicable, they did not support local or regional traffic mobility, they did not support Heber City’s vision for its historic town center, or the impacts were too great.”
Some of these disqualified alternatives involved widening or otherwise altering U.S. 40 or creating an eastern bypass.
Three of the five remaining alternative routes plan to build local roads along U.S. 40 until it intersects with 800 North, where an intersection would allow traffic to take a road around the west side of Heber City. The other two have through routes that begin diverting traffic from the north much earlier at U.S. 40’s intersection with River Road.
Though some argue the quicker diversion of southbound traffic will lead to a longer-lasting solution, others worry about the paths’ impacts to the fields north of Heber City and areas that have been beautified by the Provo River Restoration Project, an effort that began in 1999 to take the diked and channeled river and make it resemble what it was before it was altered.
While Heber City has not officially endorsed any of the five routes over others. According to City Manager Matt Brower, the city has taken the position “to support UDOT and the EIS process while not taking any official position the proposed alternatives.” But invdividual city councilors have sent their opinions to UDOT.
Mayor Heidi Franco has used her “The Mayor’s Report” blog to speak against councilors who determined the routes that would cut into the north fields would be better, and Wasatch County as an entity submitted a comment to UDOT stating it didn’t believe the department had adequately considered the value the community places in the north fields.
“Not everybody may love every part of it, but hopefully there’ll be a broad support and consensus,” Stewart said.