Transit ideas are merging

WEST VALLEY CITY — The long-awaited decision on where a north-south freeway will be constructed on the Salt Lake Valley's west side is still about two years away.

But a community task force assembled by a growth-planning organization to make a recommendation to a governmental department is almost ready to adopt a "vision." The task force ultimately will report to a governmental department that will eventually decide, along with two other governmental entities, where the road will be placed.

If that sounds a bit convoluted and confusing, that's probably because it is. Welcome to the "discovery" and "vision" process for the Mountain View Corridor, and to a new era for transportation planning in Utah.

It has been about a decade since cities on the valley's west side began setting aside property for the eventual construction of what has been known, variously, as the Western Transportation Corridor and, later, as the Salt Lake County extension of the Legacy Highway. And still, no definite route has been chosen.

"My general feeling about the Mountain View Corridor is that it is a very frustrating process," said West Valley Mayor Dennis Nordfelt.

"This is the second formal EIS (environmental impact statement) done on that corridor, and every time there is a meeting, the preferred alignment or the best ideas change. The process is so long . . . and inconclusive that it's very frustrating.

"In order for us to plan for land use in the area that the corridor will be in, we really need to have a corridor that is determined and that we're going to stick with."

Such a determination is on the way.

On March 10, the Mountain View Corridor Growth Choices Stakeholder Committee is set to vote on acceptance of an eight-page "vision" document that outlines some basic principles that could then be recommended to the Utah Department of Transportation. UDOT then would consider the document but could reject its recommendations.

"That meeting would be to bring out a map and a text of an agreement that we would all hope, I think, is something that the jurisdictions feel comfortable with," said Ted Knowlton, project manager for Envision Utah, which is supervising the community-involvement process.

Included in that "vision" is a route for the future highway, from U-201 in Salt Lake City clear into Utah County. It is the same, or greatly similar, to the alignment previously recommended by the Wasatch Front Regional Council (in 2000) and West Valley officials.