|
The most important road project in the state continued its sharp shrinkage on Tuesday.
Both majority caucuses talked about reducing the scope of the project once again, this time from Lehi Main Street to U.S. 6 in Spanish Fork. It had started out from 12300 South in Salt Lake Valley to Payson and was then shortened to 12300 South to Spanish Fork before Tuesday's action. The Department of Transportation has been waiting for guidance from the Legislature before starting construction that would add additional lanes in each direction. The move to shrink the scope was made to protect the state's AAA bond rating, said Senate President John Valentine. A downturn in the state economy is expected to affect the state's constitutional bond cap and lawmakers want to protect the bond rating because so much rides on it, from schools to some city and county projects. "[It's] to be prudent and to be conservative that we're not going to get too close to the edge of the cliff," he said. That said, watching the state's top priority shrink is clearly frustrating Valentine, who said, "We're taking what we can get." Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, said lawmakers aren't trying to shortchange Utah County. "Any time you're looking at spending $2.7 billion I don't think you're getting nickeled and dimed," he said. He said that Salt Lake County had to complete many of its I-15 projects after the main work had been done such as the 12300 South interchange, and UDOT left everything north of 600 North in Salt Lake City alone. The Legislature has already tried to offload some of the cost of I-15 through Utah County onto the county by sponsoring a new, optional tenth-of-a-cent sales-tax bill. That could raise around $12 million, but that wouldn't have much impact on the $2.6 billion project, even though it's more than a billion dollars cheaper than the previous proposal. The shorter proposal will also create an admitted bottleneck at the already nasty Point of the Mountain. That was considered, Valentine said, and the slowing economy may actually help there because of lower projected home sales in the Saratoga Springs and Eagle Mountain areas. "We feel like we have just a little bit of breathing room in the section we're talking about," he said. Senate Republicans endorsed the plan on Tuesday, and while House Republicans talked about it, they did not take a position. "It's a complicated challenge with lots of moving parts," said Rep. Becky Lockhart, R-Provo, who added that House Republicans will likely take a position today. Going with the shorter proposal will save money but probably not time. It's still being considered a six-year project that will take about a year and a half of planning before going to contract sometime in the summer of 2009. As for I-15 through the rest of Utah County? "I think that's going to be something a future Legislature is going to have to wrestle with," Valentine said.
• Rette Speight contributed to this report. |
