LEHI — More than 200 Lehi-area residents crowded into the Legacy Center in Lehi Wednesday night to listen to environmentally friendly alternatives to the Mountain View Corridor in north Utah County.

The information rally was presented by a local group of residents called Citizens Organized for Smarter Transportation. The group, which hired an independent traffic consultant to examine other road options in the city, is adamantly opposed to a potential six-lane freeway connection running through Lehi.

"We are opposed to a freeway of any kind running through Saratoga Springs or Lehi, including a 2100 North alternative," Dave Klock, who helped organize COST, said to the crowd. "We are opposed to the negative impacts a freeway will foster in north Utah County. We are opposed to the destruction of homes and families, the destruction of wetlands and our natural heritage, and the destruction of established agricultural protection zones."

Freeway connections at 2100 North or at 1900 South in Lehi are currently being considered by Utah's Department of Transportation as options to connect the Mountain View Corridor — which is slated to run on the west side of Utah Lake from Salt Lake County to Utah County — to I-15.

If either of those freeways are constructed, UDOT says the roads could potentially cause the relocation of up to 177 homes in the area or cut through a portion of govern- ment-protected wetlands that line northern Utah Lake. UDOT is also considering a third alternative that would call for three boulevards, one at Porter Rockwell Boulevard in Bluffdale, one at 2100 North in Lehi and one at 1900 South in Lehi.

In addition, UDOT has plans to construct a boulevard on 1000 South as part of a separate project.

Klock says COST opposes freeways in Lehi because of the damaging impact major roads can have on air quality, home values, wildlife and other issues — but he, and several Lehi City Council members, told the group of residents not to view UDOT as the "enemy," and to treat the organization kindly whenever they express their opinions.

UDOT officials were not invited to attend the event, Klock said, so that COST members could establish their platform before presenting it to the state-run organization.

"UDOT is not the enemy," Klock said. "They are public servants like a lot of other folks. We just personally think our idea is better, and we need to communicate that idea to UDOT."

Klock said the group's slogan, which was printed on green ribbons and distributed to the audience, is, "It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are."

COST's ideas, as presented by Lucy Gibson, a national transportation planner based out of Vermont, are to have tree-lined boulevards and arterial connections that require less speed from drivers. Gibson, who worked as a consultant for a citizens' group who protested against the Legacy highway, also spoke about the need to implement mass transit options into road plans.