Comments about ‘Officials open Pioneer Crossing to motorists’

This is great news, now we from Lehi can have our Main Street back!

$260M public money for 6 miles of new road - WOW! Talk about paving the streets with gold.

It makes the privately funded/toll 7 mile $600M bridge across Utah Lake not look so bad....

300,000 people living there by 2030. I wonder where exactly they think the water will come from for all of that development? Last time I checked, we live in a desert, particularly on the west side of Utah Lake.

300K... that sounds like a joke. I realize there is not much more room on the east side of the valley to expand, but I just don't see 300K on the west side. I think the numbers they were using came from 05-08 growth, not 09-10 growth.

However, I am happy to see that they are trying to build a proper infrastructure before this whole thing is a total mess and it is more expense later.

@Johnny Triumph...that will be nice...too bad they took our farm land to do it.

@peterslu...Don't you know we get water from Walmart...and our food. Those things are no longer natural resources...it all comes from the store.

There is no way a privately funded bridge across the lake will cost only 600 million. The initial estimates used very sketchy geotechnical foundations and neglected hydraulic runoff, for starters.

And the 300,000 people west of the lake is a forecasting nightmare, unrestrained by geography or services. And allowing it to happen (if it could) would be an environmental nightmare. No, the 300,000 people moving into Utah County will need to live in the several-acre front yards of the Cedar Hills McMansions.

This should have been built to freeway standards as a real freeway with plans to eventually extend the freeway through Cedar Pass and up to Tooele, with another freeway eventually be built on the west side of Utah Lake.

At a time when Utah is trying to save farms and farmland all they can see are dollar signs for development in an area not suitable for commercial or housing development. An area prone to flooding and land shifts and slides if it is developed.

We not only lose food resources we lose open spaces and some sanity in development. Resources, like water, are very limited and strained beyond capacity and they talk about more abuse 300K being added to the list? It's insanity development.

The state should be stepping up efforts to limit and control growth or we will grow ourselves into oblivion. When will they start rationing water for this growth? It's not far away, one good drought will destroy the Salt Lake valley and we will be at war with Nevada to get our water back, if any is left in the subterranean lake.

Our water companies should be going public with some facts and disclosures on the affects of this uncontrolled development. Its time their knowledge be revealed and how this valley can sustain such insane reasoning.

I started commuting on Pioneer Crossing yesterday and it's wonderful to have that option! But 45 MPH is way too slow for this road.

peterslu, you are exactly right, but remember the east side is also a desert and where does that water come from? Most of the Wasatch Front's water comes from wells, reservoir storage, and pipelines. There is water in the west mountain, east mountains and the Uintas. Much of the land is irrigated farm land and when that is developed, the water rights are used for homes. Also, when Geneva Steel went bankrupt, it freed up enough water rights for Saratoga Springs and Eagle Mountain for another 100,000 people. That pipeline was built along side Pioneer Crossing from Orem and will transport enough water for those 100,000 people on the West Side of Utah Lake and another 200,000 on the West Side of Salt Lake County. Water will become a concern when about 180,000 people are living on the West Side of Utah Lake. Until then, it is taken care of, so no need to worry. You won't have to share any water until that time.