An Update on SB195—UDOT Finds Insignificant Impact on Traffic
On October 15th, the Utah Transportation Interim Committee had their first hearing on SB195. UDOT presented a summary of their findings from their survey and analysis of recently completed street projects. Even starting from a biased towards car-traffic perspective in terms of the survey phrasing and metrics used by UDOT, the main takeaway from the summary and UDOT Director Carlos Braceras’ presentation was that the street design changes had minimal impact on travel time, and that traffic signal timing was a more important factor (as we’ve previously suggested). The survey showed that overall sentiment was 41% positive, 19% neutral, and 40% negative, though when broken down into topic areas, the sentiment was overwhelmingly neutral or positive. The main pain point was due to construction disruptions—and not the street redesign—which in many cases was prolonged due to the renewing of critical public utility infrastructure (water, sewer, and gas).
A major outcome of this part of SB195 is UDOT’s classification of “Critical Vehicle Capacity” routes, placing arterial and collector streets into three tiers, Tier 1: Preserve Capacity, Tier 2: Study/Engagement, and Tier 3: Document. This lines up well with major car routes. It’s not clear what Tier 1: Preserve will entail, but we can confidently say that there will be no lane reductions on these routes. Hopefully there can still be right-sizing of the street space where there are oversized lanes.
So what’s next? We’ve been told that the next step will be for Salt Lake City to present their Mobility Plan to the Transportation Interim Committee on November 19th. In the meantime, SLC will have more engagement opportunities, including another open house to solicit feedback for a draft of the plan. [November 5 update - the next engagement opportunity will be no earlier than December. Check here for updates.]
If you haven’t submitted your comments for SLC’s Mobility Plan and upcoming projects, SLC’s survey is open through November 7! Fill it out here, and be sure not to miss the “Click here to see the projects” button to review street design concepts for each project.
