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The Utah County of 2030 could look drastically different if the Mountainland Metropolitan Planning Organization's regional transportation plan unrolls as anticipated.
The organization, which works with the state Department of Transportation and the Utah Transit Authority on regional transit planning, anticipates the county's population will boom from about 460,000 today to more than 900,000 in just more than two decades, said Transportation Planner Chad Eccles.
To compensate, a 12-lane stretch of Interstate 15 could reach from Draper through Provo. The FrontRunner commuter rail could run from Brigham City down to Payson. And a bevy of other transit options, including a high-tech bus system with dedicated lanes, could join the fray as options for commuters to get from home to work and back again.
"It's fun and confusing all at the same time," Eccles told Provo residents in a Dixon neighborhood meeting at Dixon Middle School Thursday night. "Utah County has been growing faster than anywhere in the state. It's staggering. It's nonstop."
One of the central ideas of Eccles's presentation to residents of Provo's Dixon, Joaquin and Franklin neighborhoods was an intermodal hub on University Avenue near the Provo Towne Centre. The hub, which would sit on 10.6 acres at University Avenue and 600 South, would offer residents a spot to transfer between different forms of transportation including cars, bikes, buses and commuter rail as they travel around the county.
"It's very conceptual right now," Eccles said.
He also brought up the concept of bus rapid transit, or BRT, which uses high-tech buses on specialized routes to get through traffic quickly. Among other advances, the buses would have the technology to communicate with traffic signals and keep green lights green a bit longer if it helps them make it through the intersection, Eccles said.
"Oh, I want one of those," joked Kathryn S. Allen, a resident of the Franklin neighborhood.
Eccles also discussed the future of I-15 in Utah County. A $3 billion overhaul of the road would widen it to 12 lanes in the northern part of the county and 10 in the south. It would also straighten out the road and rejigger the ramps at Center Street in Provo into what's called a single-point urban interchange to move traffic more quickly on and off the highway.
"The whole south of the state relies on this corridor," Eccles said. "This is a state need. This is not a Utah County need."
Eccles said, as one might expect, the major constraint for any of the proposed initiatives is fundraising. Road work is funded partially by the Legislature, partially by increases to sales tax and car registration fees and partially from other sources.
One Dixon resident, Dave Harding, raised concerns that the money Utah's transportation agencies have invested in public transit has not always proved to be well-spent.
"My experience with buses is that it wasn't a very pleasant experience," he said. "It's inconvenient. The time, the routes and all of this stuff is difficult."
Harding said that as a University of Utah student, he would often ride buses during rush hour that had only one or two other people on them.
Allen agreed, saying a public education initiative is crucial to the success of any public transit.
"Don't we need to start an education program?" she said.
Initial skepticism has been a regular companion of most large transportation projects in Utah, Eccles said. But in the case of UTA's TRAX line, while he was regularly scolded by concerned residents about the cost, ridership turned out to be triple what was anticipated, Eccles said.
The first projects to get attention will be the I-15 interchange at Center Street and the extension of FrontRunner into Provo, Eccles said. Both should occur within the next two or three years, barring any unforeseen complications, he said. |
