SB195 Update—Meaningful changes secured, but more work to do
We first want to thank everyone for their contributions and advocacy for safe streets. Not only were hundreds of emails and texts sent to lawmakers about SB195, but the House Transportation Committee hearing room was packed with so many people wanting to testify against SB195 that the chairwoman had to limit the number who spoke! The representatives mentioned that the outcry of opposition to SB195 Substitute 3 greatly influenced the positive outcomes in the current 5th Substitute (more on that below). This wouldn’t have been possible without so many of YOU voicing YOUR concerns!
In this article, we’ll describe what is in the new Substitute bill—the good, the bad and the actions you can take to make sure we limit the impact on street safety projects in our city. We’ve made great strides, but it’s not over yet!
As things evolve, we’ll be updating this article. In the coming days, check back here for the latest information. For now, here’s what we know:
The Good
About an hour before the hearing, a new substitute of SB195, Substitute 5, was introduced and this took the place of Substitute 3, which we greatly opposed. Substitute 5 addressed many of the issues we brought up, allowing projects that have already been advertised for construction to proceed, removing the outright moratorium on traffic calming and removing small neighborhood streets from the new study requirements. Plus, it now limits the study area to only include the area within 600 North, Interstate 15, 2100 South and Foothill Drive. Thanks to your efforts, the 600 North, 300 West and 400 South bikeways, and Kensington Neighborhood Byway projects are still a go!
The Bad
However, we need to address some of the misconceptions about the bill and what it still includes. While Substitute 5 did remove the word “moratorium,” it still includes a “pause” (in Sen. Harper’s words) on all projects that involve lane reduction or lane narrowing on collector and arterial streets—that means most of the core street grid in and around downtown, even quiet neighborhood streets like 600 East.
The inclusion of lane narrowing as a prohibited action is particularly worrisome. It means that many paint-based projects could be put on hold even though they don’t include the removal of car lanes, like a proposal to narrow the lanes on the city-owned portion of 700 East in order to add a buffered bike lane, or plans to paint a consistent bike lane along 1700 South. And the lane reduction provisions would pause projects like a constituent Capital Improvement Program (CIP) project on Sunnyside Ave, the Green Loop’s Civic Block, the restriping of 2100 South east of Sugar House Park, and more.
The study area for the new SB195, enclosed by red lines. All of the colored streets (blue, green, orange) are included in a pause and study as currently written (map from the SLC Transportation Master Plan, 2018).
Action Items
Sweet Streets has two requests of the House as SB195 reaches the chamber floor for debate.
Remove the lines of text that mention lane narrowing—3077 and 3078.
According to a study from Johns Hopkins University that included Salt Lake City, narrower lanes can increase overall safety in the urban context. Wider lanes are more appropriate for high speed roads like the interstate. Because of UDOT’s influence on local street design, many non-freeway streets are painted with 12-foot-wide lanes, which are inappropriate in an urban setting.
Lane narrowing is unlikely to have any impact on traffic congestion, including the road capacity, since urban streets are slower and mostly governed by frequent traffic lights, and the width of the lane does not change the number of total lanes available to queue drivers in private vehicles.
Update the text to only include collector and arterial roads that have >15,000 annual average daily trips (AADT)—various lines of text in the bill, searchable by “collector” and “arterial.”
Roads with <15,000 AADT are likely to support a lane reduction, or “road diet,” according to the US Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration. Removing these streets from consideration can avoid an unnecessary pause on and study of low-traffic streets.
Where appropriate, road diets have been shown to *improve* movement on a roadway. 4-lane and 6-lane streets are particularly space inefficient, and dieting them to 3-lane and 5-lane streets, with buffered cycling lanes and two-way turning lanes, improve the efficiency of traffic flow. Drivers often mistake these road diets as having a deleterious effect. In reality, fewer traffic lanes means fewer lanes to cross when turning, center turn lanes remove vehicles from fast moving traffic, there’s less aggressive driving like weaving between lanes, and there’s reduced pressure to speed when vehicles are lined up in a single lane.
Who to Contact
Simple changes to the bill, like removing a line of text or modifying certain lines, can be brought to the floor by any representative in the House. These simple fixes could make a big impact while still being amenable to the legislature.
Tips on writing:
Be respectful in your email! While many of us are upset with this bill, that won’t get you far. Know that our reps see hundreds of bills in just 45 days and unfortunately don’t have time to study every bill diligently.
Express gratitude for the changes that were made. While we wanted none of this bill, they did remove much of the offending text. Particularly, repeat your support for traffic calming measures and local control. There is a group of people in our community who are still fighting to stop traffic calming, using false talking points to paint pro-safety efforts as anti-car.
Be concise. Thanks to the previous emails from all of you, they’ve heard our stories and concerns with the original bill. Let’s make sure they know exactly what we want now. Feel free to mention if you live on or near one of the low-traffic collector roads and how the modifications to the bill would be beneficial to you.
Focus on your area representatives, but don’t ignore the full House membership and don’t be discouraged by lawmakers who offer pre-written replies about prioritizing their own constituents. 90% of lawmaking is vibes, and they feel the impact of your emails and texts.
Loop in your non-Legislature community representatives. At this point in the process, the position of entities like the City Council, the mayor, UTA, WFRC, the League of Cities and Towns, the County Council and Neighborhood Community Councils carry far more weight than individual feedback. The committee is where the granular debate is intended to happen, while the House members will be looking to represent large swaths of their constituency with a single vote. Hearing from the next tier of community representatives magnifies the voice of our individual residents and supporters.
How to find your Representative
You can find the contact information for every member of the Legislature at le.utah.gov. Click the “Legislators” tab in the top left corner of the home page, and you can search by name or by address. All lawmakers have a public email and all are required to list a public telephone number, many of which are cellular numbers that can send and receive text messages. For your representative, make sure you send a separate email that says that you’re a constituent, and add your address.
The House could vote on SB195 as early as Monday, so it’s important that we work NOW over the weekend to reach as many people as we can and to find folks who are willing to move and vote for amendments on the floor.
Let’s keep up the fight for safe streets!
Here is a list of all 75 representative’s emails. This should paste into an email client like GMail. With this being a large number of emails - please let us know if you notice any typos!
tpeterson@le.utah.gov,mpetersen@le.utah.gov,jthompson@le.utah.gov,tauxier@le.utah.gov,csnider@le.utah.gov,mgwynn@le.utah.gov,ryanwilcox@le.utah.gov,jkyle@le.utah.gov,jsawyer@le.utah.gov,jkoford@le.utah.gov,khall@le.utah.gov,mikeschultz@le.utah.gov,kpeterson@le.utah.gov,karilisonbee@le.utah.gov,adefay@le.utah.gov,tlee@le.utah.gov,sbarlow@le.utah.gov,pcutler@le.utah.gov,rayward@le.utah.gov,mballard@le.utah.gov,shollins@le.utah.gov,jdprovost@le.utah.gov,hnguyen@le.utah.gov,gmiller@le.utah.gov,angelaromero@le.utah.gov,mmacpherson@le.utah.gov,aloubet@le.utah.gov,npeck@le.utah.gov,bbolinder@le.utah.gov,jfitisemanu@le.utah.gov,vmauga@le.utah.gov,shayes@le.utah.gov,dougowens@le.utah.gov,csmoss@le.utah.gov,rdominguez@le.utah.gov,jdunnigan@le.utah.gov,amatthews@le.utah.gov,cacton@le.utah.gov,kivory@le.utah.gov,astoddard@le.utah.gov,glbennion@le.utah.gov,cokerlund@le.utah.gov,seliason@le.utah.gov,jteuscher@le.utah.gov,tmiller@le.utah.gov,croberts@le.utah.gov,mstrong@le.utah.gov,dfiefia@le.utah.gov,cpierucci@le.utah.gov,sgricius@le.utah.gov,jeffersonmoss@le.utah.gov,corymaloy@le.utah.gov,kchristofferson@le.utah.gov,kchevrier@le.utah.gov,jhawkins@le.utah.gov,vpeterson@le.utah.gov,nabbott@le.utah.gov,dshallenberger@le.utah.gov,mkohler@le.utah.gov,tclancy@le.utah.gov,lshepherd@le.utah.gov,normthurston@le.utah.gov,swhyte@le.utah.gov,jburton@le.utah.gov,dwelton@le.utah.gov,tshelley@le.utah.gov,christinewatkins@le.utah.gov,scottchew@le.utah.gov,lmonson@le.utah.gov,carlalbrecht@le.utah.gov,rshipp@le.utah.gov,jelison@le.utah.gov,cjack@le.utah.gov,nwalter@le.utah.gov,wbrooks@le.utah.gov
