Is Utah facing a traffic Armageddon?

Transportation in Utah has reached a "crisis" and many of the major thoroughfares along the Wasatch Front are "overwhelmed," according to an urgent plea for funding help issued by the Wasatch Front Regional Council and its partners.

The metropolitan planning organization has released a four-page document to state lawmakers and the public, outlining just how hopelessly clogged it believes the state's transportation system will be unless an additional $4.3 billion is poured into transportation projects by 2015.

"The need may not be evident today, this year, but we are predicting that by 2015 it will be very evident if we don't increase funding for transit and highways," said Chuck Chappell, WFRC executive director. "Once it's funded, it takes on the order of five to seven years to get (a project) on the ground. We're predicting this crisis a few years off, saying we've got to do something now because of the length of time it takes to complete them.

"We're not crying Chicken Little or something. We've gone through a process, a technical process, to produce forecasts of what the travel demand will be in 10 years, by 2015."

And that picture isn't pretty. A map produced by the WFRC shows that if transportation infrastructure is built at current funding levels — including the construction of the Legacy Parkway — dozens of main roadways along the Wasatch Front will be "severely congested" by 2015.

The public relations campaign intentionally comes at a time when state lawmakers are considering two bills that would facilitate increased funding of transportation projects. HB18, which has yet to be debated, would provide about $2 billion of the needed funding — primarily through a shift of general-fund monies to transportation. SB25 would give the Utah Transportation Commission the authority to prioritize which planned projects should be constructed with that money.

Partly for that reason, the WFRC document is careful not to prioritize the needed projects. But here are some of the things the region's transportation planners say should be done before 2015:

• Reconstruct and widen I-15 in Davis, Utah, Weber and southern Salt Lake counties.

• Build a commuter rail train network between Salt Lake and Weber counties.

• Construct the 14-mile Legacy Parkway, which has been delayed by a court ruling.

• Begin construction of the Mountain View Corridor highway, which would extend north-to-south through western Salt Lake County and into Utah County.

• Improve east-west roadways and make interchange improvements throughout the region.