After years of fighting over whether to preserve Logan Canyon's natural wonders or build a bigger highway through them, environmentalists and the Utah Department of Transportation have made a deal.
U.S. 89 won't be quite the drive UDOT envisioned when the department in the 1980s laid out its initial hopes for taming the serpentine mountain road. The agency has backed off plans to widen the highway on certain grades and decided not to expand access and parking at some roadside attractions.But conservationists didn't get everything they wanted; UDOT will proceed with flattening out numerous curves along the scenic 40-mile route.
"They've come a long way," said Scott George, a member of Citizens for the Protection of Logan Canyon, which wanted the highway's crooked path left more or less as it is. George said the group has reluctantly accepted the modified proposal because members don't have the time or money to take the issue to court.
Just as reluctant were members of the Utah Transportation Commission, which voted 3-2 in December to accept final language on the compromise.
"Our responsibility is to construct safe roads," said commission chairman Glenn Brown, who cast one of the dissenting votes. "I couldn't support reducing the width."
Brown said among his worries is Logan Canyon's heavy use by bicyclists during warm months when automobile traffic counts approach 2,500 per day.
"Everybody felt there needed to be changes, it was just a question of degree," said Doug Thompson, president of the Cache Chamber of Commerce. "Right now if a cement truck and a school bus meet on one of those bridges, they'll make it - but they'll both lose their mirrors."
George said one upshot of negotiations was a change in UDOT's temperament toward environmentalists, a shift confirmed by Kent Hansen, the department's chief spokesman.
"That (environmental) point of view is one we haven't seen traditionally," said Hansen.
But Todd Weston, a commission member from Cache County involved one way or another in U.S. 89 plans since the 1960s, credited environmentalists, too, for being more flexible than in years past.
"They're willing to face the fact we've got to have a highway through there," said Weston, who endorsed the changes "to get the project off dead center" and because it would make for a safer drive.
Cost estimates for the redesigned project are in the $50 million range. Work will proceed piecemeal and might take up to 10 years, said Weston.
Though it traverses some of the state's most rugged country, U.S. 89 through the Bear River Mountain Range is a heavily traveled conduit between the Cache Valley and points east. Bear Lake, a popular playground, creates much of the traffic and a number of manufacturers in the Logan area - including a Pepperidge Farms cookie factory, meat packer E.A. Miller, plastic-bag-maker Presto and Cache Valley Cheese - ship their products overland via U.S. 89. The road is also a vital year-round link for Rich County residents who travel to Logan for health care and shopping.
UDOT with its initial insistence on proceeding with broad improvements found local support among those who said a less-treacherous highway was a necessity. But the department also alienated much of the community.
"The process UDOT had been following left a lot of people feeling as though their views didn't matter," said Mark Brunson, a Utah State University forestry professor who was among hundreds of Logan-area residents who questioned UDOT's tack.
Hansen said UDOT will continue soliciting local input as the project proceeds, and George said Logan activists will insist on providing it.
The most important concessions are probably those affecting the middle canyon, including an eight-mile segment originally slated to be widened to 40 feet along its two-lane sections and 47 feet to stretches that include a passing lane. UDOT scaled those widths back to 34 feet and 44 feet, respectively.
The department also gave up a proposal to add turn lanes and bigger parking lots at Ricks Spring midway through the drive.