ACTION ALERT—Tell your state reps to stop the anti-traffic calming bill!
Update Thursday, February 27 at 3 PM - The bill has been placed on the agenda at the House Transportation Committee meeting today, Thursday, February 27 at 4 PM!! If you can make it to the meeting, please consider testifying, otherwise you’re encouraged to attend, preferably in person and fill the room to support opposition to the bill. There is also an online option. See towards the bottom (Step 3) for tips on attending or testifying. The sponsor also just released a 5th Substitute to the bill. It’s better, but still delays several projects by including most of Salt Lake City and including any project collector and arterial roads (all of downtown) that includes lane narrowing (that’s a lot of projects!) or vehicle lane reduction that have not been advertised to a contractor yet. This includes projects on 2100 South, 1700 South, Sunnyside Ave, and more. Particularly, most resurfacing and restriping projects will be delayed by Substitute 5.
There’s a bill making its way through the Capitol that, if approved in its current form, would force Salt Lake City to halt its work on traffic calming, Vision Zero, neighborhood byways and livable streets for at least a year, while handing control of our local grid to the Utah Department of Transportation.
This bill, SB195, particularly lines 2867–2906 on Substitute 3 and lines 3071-3143 on Substitute 5, is an existential threat to the work of Sweet Streets and could undo the momentum we’ve built within Salt Lake City to transition away from car-dependency, with a chilling effect on our neighbors in Salt Lake County. While lawmakers claim SB195 is intended to plan for new traffic patterns around the Delta Center/Salt Palace district, the language of the bill is written so broadly and with such overt car-centrism that it prohibits any change to any street that would discourage speeding or aggressive driving, including a neighborhood stop sign or a crosswalk in front of a school.
We need your help to raise the alarm about this damaging bill. We need to make it clear to our elected Representatives and Senators that this kind of state overreach is unacceptable. We need to save our streets!
The pertinent text in SB195 Substitution 3, which passed the Senate with no notice or mention of this damaging text, only applies to Salt Lake City. Note that highway is defined early in the bill and the definition encompasses every street in SLC!
Step 1: Contact the House Transportation Committee
SB195 has already passed the Senate and will next be debated by the House Transportation Committee. The next committee meetings are Wednesday (02/26) at 8 AM and Thursday (02/27) at 4 PM. We won’t know for sure if the bill is on the committee agenda until the day before it’s scheduled, so stay tuned for updates (at the top of the article). You can also take a look at their calendar here - just look for “SB0195”, if it’s not there, it’s not yet scheduled.
This committee is our best chance to strip the offending language in Substitute 3 and 5 before the bill goes to the House floor for a final vote. Please add your voice to this debate by emailing or calling (or both!) the following legislators, expressing your concerns about SB195 and asking them to go back to the 2nd Substitute version of the bill, which was broadly supported by stakeholders like UTA and City Hall. If any of the following lawmakers represent your area, include your zip code and let them know you’re a constituent! If you’re not a constituent, don’t be discouraged if you get a reply mentioning this. It still matters to them especially when many people are contacting them!
Don’t worry too much about the exact wording of your message. The main idea to get across is that you oppose the language of the 3rd Substitute version of the bill that instates a moratorium on SLC transportation projects and adds unnecessary oversight for projects big and small throughout the city. Feel free to add a personal touch - how has speeding/aggressive driving impacted you, the positive impact of traffic calming in your neighborhood, the importance of community control, especially when the people who live here know best, or how this would impact kids or the elderly in your neighborhood.
Rep. Kay Christofferson, R-Lehi (committee chairman)
kchristofferson@le.utah.gov, M: 801-592-5709
Rep. Ariel Defay, R-Kaysville (committee vice-chair)
adefay@le.utah.gov, M: 435-760-7726
Rep. Kristen Chevrier, R-Alpine/Highland (a cyclist!)
kchevrier@le.utah.gov, M: 801-520-6773
Rep. Rosalba Dominguez, D-Murray
rdominguez@le.utah.gov, M: 801-419-3283
Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan
kivory@le.utah.gov, M: 801-694-8380
Rep. Ashlee Matthews, D-Kearns/West Jordan/Taylorsville
amatthews@le.utah.gov, M: 385-264-2024
Rep. Clinton Okerlund, R-Sandy/Cottonwood Heights
cokerlund@le.utah.gov, W: 801-999-8605
Rep. Michael Petersen, R-Logan/Smithfield
mpetersen@le.utah.gov, M: 435-770-6925
Rep. Calvin Roberts, R-Draper
croberts@le.utah.gov, M: 801-438-4051
Rep. Jake Sawyer, R-Ogden/West Haven
jsawyer@le.utah.gov, M: 801-641-5928
Rep. Norman Thurston, R-Provo
normthurston@le.utah.gov, M: 801-477-5348
Step 2: Contact YOUR Representative and Senator
If you don’t know who represents you at the Utah Legislature, visit le.utah.gov and search your address. This will show the two lawmakers elected in your district, and you can follow those links to their individual biography pages, where emails and phone numbers are listed.
SB195 is eventually headed to the House floor so every member of that body needs to be alerted to its problems. And even though the Senate already voted, your personal senator can provide incredible influence in slowing down and altering legislation. Plus, if we succeed at getting the bill changed in the House, it would return to the Senate for an additional, concurring vote.
Step 3: Testify in committee
Every member of the public has a right to attend committee hearings and provide public testimony in support or opposition of legislation. And filling a committee room is among the most powerful statements the public can make. Lawmakers are human after all, and they don’t like to make people angry when those people are staring them in the face.
How to testify
—The committee will be hearing multiple bills so pay attention to when SB195 is taken up on the agenda. The listed agenda is sometimes heard out of order. The debate on SB195 will start with a presentation from the bill’s sponsor, during which he’ll explain any new amendments and then take questions from committee members. After that, the committee chairman will open public comment and ask for a raise of hands in the room and online for anyone wishing to speak for or against SB195.
—*NOTE* It’s possible that the bill will be amended before public comment begins. And that means the bill could be fixed before we speak, or made even worse. We’ll do our best to clarify things in the room as they occur, but we’ll want to adjust our comments to meet the moment, as best we can. It is still important that folks give public comment whether or not the bill is fixed, to demonstrate the positions of our community.
—Raise your hand and listen for instructions from the chairman. If there are a lot of people wanting to provide comments, the chair may ask everyone to line up or they may set a limit on the number of people allowed to speak (i.e. 5 for and 5 against, for 2 minutes each). This is fully up to the discretion of the chairman, so listen for the particulars and we’ll try to provide clarity as best we can from within the room.
—When it’s your turn to speak, get close to the microphone, speak clearly and calmly, state your name and city of residence, and then explain your concerns about the bill. Time goes fast, so get to the point quick and stay on it.
Talking points
There’s no right way or wrong way to testify, but it can also help to have a few thoughts prepared. And because the bill can change quickly, it’s best to prioritize the things you’re in favor of (safe streets, traffic calming, local control) rather than focusing solely on what you’re against. Here’s some of the points we’d suggest raising in your testimony:
—Traffic calming has improved traffic flow and transit performance on roads like West Temple, 300 West, 200 South and others, while truly transforming small neighborhood streets into places where children and families can thrive. People may find the construction period uncomfortable, but the benefits are clear.
—SLC families are using newly calmed-streets to explore the city without a car, SLC schoolchildren are using free transit passes and traffic-calmed streets to gain independence and confidence. All the while, our families are decreasing their use of private vehicles, improving traffic for everyone and saving money on transportation costs for themselves.
—Downtown businesses saw an increase in sales when Main Street was pedestrianized. The Green Loop was originally a proposal by the Downtown Alliance. Pedestrianized Main Street has been in city plans for more than 60 YEARS! Safe, people-first streets are an economic driver. Car-centric roads lead to lower property values, higher crime and higher vacancy rates, in addition to higher rates of pollution, injury and death.
—An urban street serves different needs than a suburban highway. Our streets are destinations in and of themselves, supporting multiple different uses at once, and can’t function properly if they’re only built to prioritize high-speed movement.
—Drivers have access to all areas in the city, while non-drivers are limited in their access to safe routes. Drivers likely don’t understand this dynamic, despite their best intentions. The only way to improve the safety and convenience for pedestrians, cyclists and transit riders is to reconfigure redundant driving space, which we can do in SLC without impacting overall traffic because our streets are already wider than they need to be.
—SB195 threatens local control. If the state controls Salt Lake City’s streets today, they can control any other, smaller city’s streets tomorrow.
—SB195 would make us *less* prepared, not more prepared, for events like the Olympics. When large events bring visitors to the city, those visitors are likely to be staying in the downtown core and primarily getting around on foot and on Trax. We’ve learned from things like the NBA All-Star Game and Outdoor Retailers convention that traffic calming and pedestrian-oriented streets make us better positioned to absorb crowds, maximizing the benefit of tourism while minimizing the impact on residents and daily commuters.
How to attend online
—Visit le.utah.gov and use the calendar on the Home page to find the House Transportation Committee. Around 4 p.m. Thursday, when the chairman gavels the committee into session, the committee’s calendar tab will turn green and new links will appear on the committee page allowing viewers to register and participate in a virtual hearing. ***NOTE*** there is no virtual meeting link posted until close to the beginning of the hearing itself.
The Sweet Streets board will do our best to keep our community updated about this bill, but things move fast at the Capitol so don’t wait to contact your elected representatives and make your plans NOW to get up the hill and make sure your voice is heard!
Together, we can make a difference!
