Freeway east of Lake?

OREM — Talks of a highway along the east side of Utah Lake have resurfaced, this time in connection with the Mountain View Corridor.

At the request of the Mountainland Association of Governments, the Utah Department of Transportation is exploring possibilities of extending the proposed freeway south to the Provo/Orem area or connecting it with a parkway along the east side of Utah Lake.

"It's an idea that's been out there, and we're taking a look at it at a pretty high level at this point," said Teri Newell, UDOT project manager.

The Mountain View Corridor is a proposed freeway that would connect Salt Lake and Utah counties and give motorists a west-side alternative to I-15. Alignments being studied call for the freeway to run from I-80 through the west side of Salt Lake County and northwest Utah County and connect with I-15 at or near the Pleasant Grove/Lindon interchange.

MAG transportation planners and some local elected officials would like to see the roadway travel farther south along the east side of the lake — possibly as far as the Provo airport — with multiple connectors to I-15.

Using the alignments currently being studied, the Mountain View Corridor could be dumping as many as 120,000 cars a day onto I-15 at the Pleasant Grove/Lindon interchange by 2030, said Chad Eccles, MAG transportation planner.

"We're concerned that anywhere you would drop that into I-15, the level of traffic would be so high that you'd have a hugely congested area of I-15," Eccles said. "We've been looking at ways to try to diversify that traffic volume."

By running the freeway farther south or connecting with a parkway through Vineyard along the east side of Utah Lake, traffic could be fed onto I-15 at other interchanges, he said.

Eccles said discussions with UDOT have included taking the road as far south as the Provo airport and connecting with a road being proposed by Provo that would link the airport with I-15 at the University Avenue interchange.

All of those scenarios, Eccles acknowledged, come with some major obstacles.

Vineyard officials are concerned about what the roadway would do to land values, and Orem's Sleepy Ridge Golf Course opened in the area late last summer.

There will also likely be a number of environmental concerns with the wetlands along the east side of Utah Lake.