Road job puts Pleasant Grove in bind

PLEASANT GROVE — Solving the bottleneck problem in Pleasant Grove where State Street passes under the Union Pacific railroad bridge just west of the Geneva Road intersection isn't going to be easy or cheap.

Transportation officials need to widen the existing two-lane road to five lanes now and seven lanes eventually. The road currently handles 20,000 vehicle trips per day, a number that is expected to jump to 37,000 trips per day by 2030.

Solving the tight squeeze for motorists, however, is creating a different kind of squeeze for transportation planners. They must decide if dislocating almost a dozen low-income families on one side of the road is a better option than impacting a historic home and the city's popular rodeo grounds park on the other side.

"We have two great challenges here," said Geoff Dupaix, Region Three spokesman for the Utah Department of Transportation.

"We're trying to find a way to minimize the impacts," said Craig Hancock, project manager, adding that public input can be very helpful in finding a solution. They will seek that input at an open house today.

UDOT has three alternatives under consideration for the road widening:

• Alternative 1 would take land on both the north and south sides. It would impact 11 older mobile homes (which would have to be relocated) along with Auto Performance Plus and Don's Auto on the north side and a historic home on the south side of the road.

• Alternative 2 would mostly use land on the north side. The 11 mobile homes, Auto Performance Plus and Don's Auto would still be impacted along with Allred's Ace Hardware store. The south side home would be unaffected.

• Alternative 3 would mostly impact land on the south side, including the historic home, Wils Memorial Park (rodeo grounds), Mountainland Head Start building, Granny's Bread and The Marble Place.

Each alternative includes options for having the highway cross above the tracks, go under the tracks or create a grade crossing.

The highway currently runs under the railroad line, which is owned by the Utah Transit Authority and may one day be incorporated into a light-rail corridor.

Hancock said it's imperative that residents who live in the mobile home park are treated with sensitivity in accordance with the new Environmental Justice standards. If they are asked to relocate, UDOT would need to include money in the improvement budget to pay for buying their homes.