What can be done to get those darn Davis County commuters to carpool?
Utah Department of Transportation officials will pitch their latest idea to the Salt Lake City Council Tuesday night - a high-occupancy-vehicle interchange at 100 South and I-15. Previous councils have balked at other interchange locations.Exclusive high-occupancy-vehicle lanes and interchanges encourage carpooling, and generally help traffic move more quickly, UDOT planners say (HOVs are vehicles containing two or more people - carpools, buses, vans). Thus UDOT is anxious to get HOV lanes and an interchange to accommodate Davis County commuters.
"That corridor coming from the north is probably the heaviest used bus route we have," said Byron Parker, UDOT project director of the Legacy/Davis I-15 project.
UDOT has planned exclusive HOV lanes and a 400 South interchange for motorists from the south.
Sometime after the 2002 Winter Games UDOT is going to tear up the I-15 corridor in Davis County to expand and revamp it, much like the reconstruction now going on in Salt Lake County. UDOT officials want to be able to include HOV lanes.
Here's the problem: The City Council has balked in the past at putting another interchange in that area - right smack in the Gateway Project, an area the city wants to transform into an eclectic and people-friendly mix of residential, business and cultural uses. Big freeway viaducts overhead don't exactly encourage sweethearts strolling of a summer's eve.
The city has already poured a lot of sweat and money into getting Union Pacific to agree to eliminate or consolidate rail lines in the area and UDOT to agree to shorten existing I-15 viaducts at 400 South, 500 South and 600 South.
Possible HOV interchange locations previously presented to the council included 400 South, 200 South and North Temple.
"A lot has happened since that original discussion," said council Chairman Bryce Jolley. "We've adopted light rail, the state's I-15 reconstruction, the Gateway. All those things are new since the last discussion, so I want to see if (that has) changed anything.
Parker said 100 South is the most viable alternative because it runs into the Salt Palace at 200 West, dispersing the traffic north and south over more city streets.
The council will need to make a decision of whether and where to put an HOV interchange within the next few months for the process to continue.
"If they believe in doing HOV-type of commuting into Salt Lake City, they have to find us a route to dump that in, and 100 South is the most logical," Parker said.