Opponents say proposed Utah Lake bridge not financially viable, 'smells of a scam'

PROVO — A proposal to build a bridge across Utah Lake is coming under attack — again.

Officials with the conglomeration of environmental groups advocating for a no-build alternative to the Utah Crossing Inc. plan say the proposed bridge is not financially viable.

"We've asked the state to immediately reject the (Utah Crossing) proposal because we believe it smells of a scam," said Marc Heileson of the Utah Chapter of the Sierra Club.

After analyzing the Mountainland Association of Governments' 2030 travel model plan, Vermont-based consulting firm Smart Mobility Inc. concluded it would take 58 to 87 years of collecting tolls to pay for the first phase of the proposed six-mile, $300 million, privately funded bridge — without considering any interest due.

The association's model was created through a software program that takes into account a multitude of information, including probable population growth, and looks at all existing and proposed roads. It then predicts which routes people will take to go to school, the mall, work, the grocery store, or elsewhere in the next 20 to 30 years and estimates the number of cars that will take each route, said Andrew Jackson, Mountainland Association of Governments director.

"We have reviewed the results of the modeling conducted by MAG and have found that the financial viability of the Utah Crossing is highly unlikely and also that the proposed toll bridge has little or no effect in reducing traffic congestion in the area, particularly on Lehi Main Street," Lucy Gibson, traffic engineer for Smart Mobility, wrote in a letter describing the company's analysis.

The model indicates the bridge mainly would service Saratoga Springs residents. When projecting growth to 2030, the model predicts that traffic volume would be just 6,095 cars a day, Gibson said.

A $2 toll to cross the bridge would generate about $3.5 million dollars a year, while a $3 toll would generate about $5.2 million a year, she said.

Gibson said the Mountainland Association of Governments originally based its numbers on a $2 toll, but Smart Mobility officials decided to also factor in a $3 toll. In doing so, company officials did not consider that the traffic volume likely would be lower with a higher toll, so the amount of return would probably be less each year.

Over the past 20 years, proposed toll road revenues in the United States have been overly optimistic, Gibson said. There have been many toll road projects in the past several years that have needed to be refinanced because they failed to attract necessary traffic, she said.