Category: Local

Open Invitation

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As I was researching the candidates for Lehi City Council this year I found a site that had information on most of the candidates. The site was run by one of the candidates and some of the other candidates chose not to participate because of that. I thought it would be beneficial to create a site that would provide a neutral place to learn show candidate profiles (provided by the candidates) and links to their websites. This would help prevent the mental runaround:

“Was it yes2george.com or vote4george.com or am I mixing up the sites for George Perkins and Mike George? Nevermind, I’ll stick with the flyers.

I have created a basic website but I’d like to know how much interest there is for this. If you are a candidate, or know one, who would be interested in having a profile on such a site let me know in the comments. I would also be interested to know if other people would want this as a resource for information. What I do with this will depend on the level of interest generated. (I do not expect enough interest to try charging for the service – ever)

Tags candidates, citizenship, community, Lehi

life Local State

Active Citizenship

When I think of ways that people can be active citizens in their political community the easiest action to consider is running for office. I know there are other ways to participate, but that’s the most prominent that I can think of. I was pleased today to see another great example of active citizenship. Pete Ashdown posted a letter to mayoral candidates by Tony Weller. Tony expresses his concerns and asks for feedback from the candidates in order to make an informed choice when he votes for his new mayor. He even invites the candidates to explain why they disagree with him when their position differs from his. For Tony, the key issues are related to local businesses and the vitality of downtown Salt Lake. I think any reasonable person who read the letter would have to concede that it is well thought out and respectful, just like political dialog ought to be.

The results of this kind of effort can be very rewarding. I am interested in the transportation situation currently and as Lehi continues to grow. That interest caused me to contact one of our candidates for city council to ask her for her perspective on that issue. She subsequently arranged to meet with me to discuss the issue. I’ll have to wait until the meeting to know how her position compares to mine, but because I took the time to ask I will not be voting blindly on this issue. That being said, I am starting to think that I might get even more information by querying all the candidates generally, such as Tony Weller did, rather than relying on meeting as many candidates as possible.

Tags candidates, citizenship, community, learning, Lehi

Local

Another Notice

While I’m posting public notices here’s one with a smaller scope than FrontRunner. UDOT is having an open house related to the 10th south boulevard in Lehi. This will be less than 5 locks form my house once it’s built. Here’s the information for the project and open house:

UDOT open house

Date: Sept. 6

Time: 5-7:30 p.m.

Place: Snow Springs Elementary School,

850 S. 1700 West, Lehi

Contact: www.udot.utah.gov/ewconnector, 801-753-7344.

Tags community, Lehi, transportation

Local

That’s My Town

I stumbled across an interesting post about Baby Boomburbs as described in a new book from the Brookings Institute. “Boomburbs” are fast growing cities of more than 100,000 people which get lost in the shadows of their larger neighbors (so, anything within a 20 mile radius of New York City). “Baby Boomburbs” are similar except they have 50,00 to 100,000 residents. Normally I would have thought that this was academically interesting except that I had just read a story where the mayor of Lehi was quoted listing the population here as 45,000 (I had thought it was closer to 30,000). I don’t know how precise that 45,000 is, but it puts us close to the classification of “Baby Boomburb.” With our incessant growth we could reach 50,000 before the next census if 45K is anywhere close.

This makes me even more interested in what they had to say about these cities. I’d like to see what challenges they identify and how much that does or does nto align wtih the challenges that I have identified, or that the residents of Lehi seem tuned to right now.

Tags community, population, questions

life Local

Misleading Headline

It’s frustrating to read articles such as the Daily Herald’s “Lehi residents talk about east-west freeway” because the title suggests that there might be a Lehi viewpoint to the article. It looks more like a UDOT viewpoint.

The results of their informal survey – asking whether people prefer the UDOT plan for a 2100 North freeway or the Lehi plan for a 4800 North freeway – are that six people chose the UDOT plan, one chose the Lehi plan, and one person said “whichever gets my mom home from Salt Lake the fastest.”

There are two things that really disturb me about this. First, of these 8 “Lehi residents” there are 4 residents of Eagle Mountain, 1 from American Fork, 1 from Alpine (really not connected to this issue), and only 2 from Lehi. Lehi did not even have the highest individual representation, let alone a simple majority. Second, the single question does not provide enough background to make any kind of informed choice between the options.

Of the two residents from Lehi, one chose the Lehi plan for 4800 north and one chose the UDOT plan for 2100 North. I accept that there are residents of Lehi that would choose 2100 North, but the reasoning behind that particular answer seems to confirm what I suspected – that the people being questioned were not generally informed on the issue. The reason given by that Lehi resident was that 2100 North would “harm less people putting it there because they wouldn’t have to remove as much.” That is true only when the 2100 North option is compared to the other UDOT options but not true when compared to the 4800 North freeway that UDOT has not yet considered. 4800 North would not remove any residents while 2100 North does. It is probably safe to say that respondents were also not aware that the UDOT plan is for 2100 North and nothing else while the Lehi plan is for 4800 North plus boulevards at 2100 North and 1000 South in addition to making Main Street wider west of the city where traffic is heaviest.

Next time I see an article about “Lehi residents” I hope they are actually residents of Lehi. I also hope that we can circulate more complete information on this important project.

Tags community, media, transportation

life Local State

Moving Language

I attended another rally sponsored by C.O.S.T. to talk about the Mountain View Corridor (MVC). Any regular reader here will know that I am very much in favor of the positions advocated by C.O.S.T. and that I have very defined positions about the correct course of action where the MVC project is concerned.

As a known sympathizer with C.O.S.T., I am sorry to report that the rally tonight was probably not helpful to what they are trying to accomplish. The problem was that the tone and language of the rally were too negative. I could see the reactions of many of the people in attendance who went from interested to apathetic.

Interestingly, I had read earlier about how words can spin an argument one way or another. C.O.S.T. stands for Citizens Organized for Smarter Transportation. This sends a positive, issue oriented message. The rally was billed as a “protest rally” which has a negative spin. Unfortunately the rally had a negative orientation as well and the positive message about better alternatives was lost.

The positive side of their argument, which has attracted me, is that there are better alternatives to fix the traffic problem than what UDOT is proposing. These alternatives can alleviate traffic more effectively than the UDOT proposals. They are in favor of a transit system and commercial development that would reduce the need for commuting by providing good jobs closer to home.

The attitude that should be taken is, “let’s work with UDOT to help them see the error of their plans.” Unfortunately the tone of the meeting was, “fight UDOT – they’re trying to destroy our city.”

There are real problems to be addressed with the current UDOT proposals, but instead os spending time showing pictures of dead animals while talking about trash and roadkill, the meeting should have spent more time talking about more substantive concerns such as the possibility that the 2100 North freeway would further impede North/South traffic through Lehi when the city is already divided by I-15 cutting through it. Instead of talking about the height of the proposed freeway there should have been more emphasis on the traffic mess that will result where the Mountain View Corridor reconnects with I-15 just like the connection between I-215 and I-15. During the heavy traffic periods those interchanges come to a standstill – so much for the benefit of another freeway.

I want to see more talking about changing our city to reduce the need to commute. We should be talking about improving the city for the future so that we don’t have to spend our time sounding like poor, picked-on little citizens in this forgotten hamlet being ignored by the big, bad, bureaucratic government agency.

Tags community, State, thoughts, transportation

life Local

Connect the (U)DOTs

Two big red flags went up for me this morning when I read UDOT picks Corridor link. First, UDOT is not communicating very well. Second, the media coverage is allowing some misinformation to result from gaps in the story they get from UDOT.

Flag 1: I heard from C.O.S.T., the Deseret News, the Salt Lake Tribune, the Daily Herald, and a citizens group in South Lehi that UDOT had arrived at 2100 North as their preferred alternative. The problem here is that I did not hear from the UDOT mailing list on the Mountain View Corridor that I am subscribed to. Worse than that, the UDOT website still says that they have not identified a preferred alignment in Utah County. I’m sure this is more neglect than malice, but it erodes whatever trust that citizens may have who have an interest in the project. If subscribing to the project email list at UDOT does not get citizens in the loop for news as major as selecting a preferred alternative of the project it is hard to believe that UDOT is trying to work with citizens. It looks like they’re working without citizens.

Flag 2: Two of the three news articles (Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune) mention that Lehi city and groups like C.O.S.T. have proposed an alternative plan that would include a freeway at 4800 North, but then we start to have a breakdown. Both references list the alternative as a freeway at 4800 North and two arterial roads. That leaves the impression that this plan is very similar to the Arterials option that UDOT rejected. There are some similarities, but one major difference is that the Lehi City proposal has “arterials” that are significantly smaller than the arterials that UDOT had proposed. The UDOT arterials are 7 lanes each – about the same size as a freeway. The second gap in the media coverage is that the coverage of the impact of the different alternatives shows that 2100 North is the best alternative, but it does not include any impact of the Lehi City proposal for comparison.

The “arterials” in the Lehi City proposal will be called “boulevards”. This will help clarify what plan we are talking about and it is the name that Lehi city uses in their plan. These two boulevards can be built much cheaper than the UDOT arterials and without destroying any homes. They can be built faster and for less money than the UDOT arterials and start their positive impact on the traffic earlier. They would also be slower roads which makes less impact on the community while allowing for the smaller boulevards to carry approximately the same amount of traffic as the larger arterials.

The boulevards would also augment commercial development in the area where the arterials would impede that development. Lehi would benefit from more revenue from the commercial development, but further benefit comes from local jobs which would reduce the need for commuting. More people would have the chance to have a job close to home rather than needing to commute to Salt Lake or Provo/Orem.

The freeway connection that Lehi City has proposed at 4800 North would be about half as long as the 2100 North freeway from UDOT and would not impact any homes or destroy commercially valuable zones. So while the 2100 North option is probably the best one that UDOT has proposed, it does not appear to be the best option that has been suggested.

I don’t think that UDOT can safely make a decision until they address the Lehi City plan (which UDOT helped to develop before they started the Mountain View Corridor) side by side with their alternatives. I don’t think they are really doing themselves or the public any favors by only sharing half the information and ignoring a better option than the one they are pushing.

Tags community, State, transportation

Local

Regional Transportation Plans

Post author By David
Post date April 17, 2007
2 Comments on Regional Transportation Plans

Yesterday on Radio West the show was discussing the 2030 Transportation Plan. The 2030 transportation plan is focused on the Salt Lake Valley, but it includes the Mountain View Corridor and the Mountainland Association of Governments has a plan with a similar scope. I listened to the program with interest as many callers expressed concerns similar to mine that too much reliance on roads brings more congestion in the longterm.

One concern the planners had with putting in transit options is that they are inefficient where there is significant open space between residential areas. Considering that these plans are focused on transportation through areas that are sparsely populated right now, that sounds like a valid concern. In response to that, Marc Heileson from the Sierra Club made two compelling observations: that people cannot choose to use transit if it is not available; and that a good transit system is more than just a transit option.

A good transit system makes it easy to get between places that you need to go so that the advantages of a car are not significant when compared to the transit system. Mr. Heileson also noted that transit systems are less sensitive to changes in volume of use than roads are. Based on discussions with some of my family members who live north of Salt Lake and are affected by the changes in the transit system that are being implemented there I feel safe in concluding that it is easier to plan a good transit system in advance than it is to build or modify a transit system in established areas.

Another thought that was briefly covered in the program was the idea that transportation planning could help to shape growth and traffic patterns, and not just react to the existing and projected patterns.

Virtually absent from the discussion is the fact that transportation plans can react to poorly planned development, but they cannot truly overcome that development. Transit alone is not enough in order to have the high quality living conditions in a growing region like ours. Equally important, if not more so, is the planning for commercial and industrial development. This is important so that cities have a commercial tax base and also so that residents have employment options without being forced into long commutes. This is one area where Lehi, and the northern end of Utah County in general have not traditionally done very well. Based on the plans I have seen from the city of Lehi I am hopeful that this situation will be remedied in the coming years.

I was planning to give a detailed breakdown of the Mountainland Association of Governments’ regional transportation plan, but I think this post is too long already so I’ll save that for another day.

Tags community, NPR, planning, Radio West, State, transportation