Few towns have been spared a statewide traffic surge that's become such a part of life now it no longer seems startling.
Vehicle counts are up dramatically in the 1990s - incredibly so in some locales - according to the latest numbers from the Utah Department of Transportation, where highway administrators no longer flinch at sensational growth statistics."It just doesn't surprise me anymore," said UDOT spokesman Kent Hansen, reacting to a new report that shows traffic up 30, 40 and even 50 percent between 1990 and 1995 in some areas.
"We're seeing gridlock even on Logan Main Street at certain times of day," said Todd Weston, a lifelong resident of the northern Utah town and an 11-year veteran of the all-influential Transportation Com-mission, which decides where the state spends its increasingly inadequate road-construction budget.
Competition for road money has always been fierce, said Weston, but never like this.
The reasons are plain enough.
U.S. 91, the gateway to Logan and the Cache Valley, counted an average of 8,652 vehicles per day in 1990. Last year it was 13,266, up 53.3 percent over 1990.
This affords the highway the dubious distinction of being in the top 10 percentage gainers among dozens of UDOT roads monitored daily via an extensive system of embedded sensors that radio daily data back to headquarters in Salt Lake City.
The network of 68 stations (recently increased to 80) reported an average statewide traffic increase of 24 percent during the first five years of the decade. Only two state highways showed drops in traffic, both because I-215 through urban Salt Lake City replaced them for all practical purposes.
"No, it doesn't shock me at all," said an unruffled Bill Barnes, when informed I-15 traffic from Provo to Ogden has increased by 40 percent at many spots on the interstate since 1990.
"At the rate we're growing, there's no way to build enough roads," said Barnes, the lobbyist for the Utah Transit Authority.
Thus, Barnes noted, the burgeoning appeal of mass transit. UTA's bus ridership has grown annually in the last few years by 10 percent or so, and I-15 congestion has made the agency's plan for a light-rail line from Sandy to downtown Salt Lake City less controversial than it used to be.
The drastic expansion of Salt Lake Valley's suburban boundaries shows up in the new numbers. I-80 through Parleys Canyon saw a five-year increase of 49.3 percent, reflecting the continuing settlement of Summit County, the third-fastest-growing county in America this decade.
"It ties back into our land-use patterns," said Chuck Kling-en-stein, a Park City councilman by election and urban planner by profession. "It's part of our flight from the cities. We all move to the suburbs.
"And it shows our lifestyle more than people care to admit," said Klingenstein. "It's not like you throw your kids out the door and send them off to school anymore. They have to be driven everywhere now."
Even relatively remote communities are affected, and the trend is not unique to Utah.
"You're seeing it all over the Southwest," said Karen Jones, a ranger at Arches National Park near Moab, where U.S. 191 north of town logged a 43.5 percent increase.
Moab is the prototypic Rocky Mountain boomtown, seat of a county whose population has grown 18.2 percent in five years and is suddenly famous in the 1990s, earning a global reputation as a mountain-bike mecca.
"But it's not just mountain-biking," said Jones, who commented visiting tourists often end up moving to the town, where the number of motels first doubled then tripled in the past few years.
Vicki Hanshew, a UDOT travel and research analyst, said traffic in and out of the small Washington County city of Hurricane is typical of many Utah communities.
"It's going crazy down there," said Hanshew, noting the recent widening into town of U-9, where traffic is up 53.3 percent over 1990.
The spot that logged the most dramatic showing, however, appears unlikely to sustain its status.
Redwood Road (a.k.a. U-68) south of Bluffdale, the back way into Lehi, recorded a 79.3-percent vehicle-count increase from 1990 to 1995, fueled by construction that began last year on Micron's big, much-ballyhooed factory that was supposed to have employed 4,000 within a couple of years.
The Boise-based manufacturer earlier this year mothballed the project, however, citing a global glut in the computer-chip market.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Top state-highway traffic increases
Number of vehicles, 1990-1995
1990 DAILY 1995 DAILY
LOCATION INCREASE AVERAGE AVERAGE
REDWOOD ROAD SOUTH OF BLUFFDALE 79.3% 2,217 3,975
U.S. 91 NORTH OF WELLSVILLE
(LOGAN VALLEY) 53.5% 8,652 13,266
U-9 WEST OF HURRICANE
(WASHINGTON COUNTY) 53.1% 6,064 9,285
I-80 THROUGH PARLEY'S CANYON 49.3% 25,703 38,378
I-15 SOUTH OF 3100 SOUTH 44.9% 48,674 70,539
I-15 NORTH OF CENTER STREET IN PROVO 44.4% 49,143 70,974
U.S. 191 NORTH of U-279 (NEAR MOAB) 43.5% 3,469 4,977
I-15 SOUTH OF DRAPER 41.8% 53,438 75,795
U-21 WEST OF BEAVER (BEAVER COUNTY) 41.0% 775 1,093
U.S. 40 SOUTHEAST OF HEBER CITY 38.4% 2,914 3,651