Big overhaul of I-15 looms in Utah County

It's been five years since motorists on I-15 braved the commuting nightmare known as "the luge."

The freeway's $1.59 billion makeover confined motorists to two lanes in each direction and penned them between concrete barriers for the 17-mile pre-Olympic event.

As frustrating as the four-year I-15 reconstruction was for motorists in Salt Lake County, transportation officials say such a project in Utah County today would be much, much worse.

If the Salt Lake project resembled the luge, then the Utah County equivalent would be the start of the New York City Marathon.

Beginning in 2011, Utah County is expected to undergo its own four-year I-15 reconstruction — a project for which area transportation officials say the county is not ready.

"What happened (in Salt Lake City) is a lot of the local traffic that used I-15 prior to to the reconstruction found alternative routes," said Darrell Cook, executive director of the Mountainland Association of Governments.

Motorists in Utah County simply don't have that option.

"If you look at our north-south alternatives in Utah County, you find us coming up woefully short," Cook said. "At the present time, we don't have any multilane north-south routes in Utah County except I-15."

Working in cooperation with the Utah Department of Transportation, MAG has identified 13 projects from phase one of the long-range transportation plan that need to be completed before 2011 to keep up with expected growth and make sure traffic continues to flow during the I-15 reconstruction.

Cook presented those findings earlier this month to the Mountainland Regional Planning Committee, whose members include elected county and city government officials as well as representatives from UDOT and the Utah Transit Authority.

The committee voted unanimously in support of moving forward with the proposed improvements and working toward securing the necessary funding. The proposal will go before the Utah Transportation Commission today.

MAG is the designated metropolitan planning organization for the Provo/Orem area and is responsible for producing the long-range transportation plan for Utah County.

Seven of the 13 projects combine to form a four- to eight-lane alternative to I-15 stretching from Bangerter Highway to Provo's East Bay. Other projects call for the improvement — and in one case the creation — of east-west corridors to connect with those alternatives.