Weber County residents must wait until at least next month to find out more about four Olympics-related highway projects in their area.
Utah Transportation Commissioners have delayed discussion of a long list of projects while feasibility studies continue. Four in the Ogden area are considered vital for 2002.Officials also want to see if the federal government will open its purse and help pay the $2.5 billion price tag for Utah's Olympic transportation preparations.
The lack of a firm financial commitment from Washington, D.C., and the construction delays it causes, frustrates Utah Department of Transportation engineers like John Njord, an urban planning specialist.
"I see the type of infrastructure they've put in in Nagano, paid at their federal government's expense, then look at what's happening here," Njord said. "We're just little Utah. How do we compete with the buying power of a nation?"
In northern Utah, UDOT has studied the feasibility of an interchange at U.S. 89 and South Weber Drive and an upgraded in-ter-change from U.S. 89 to I-84 in South Ogden.
The interchanges would ease predicted traffic congestion between Ogden and Snowbasin Ski Area during the Olympic Games.
A proposed commuter parking lot near South Weber Drive could double as a giant Olympic parking lot.
So far, state transportation officials have spent $100,000 on the studies, which Njord calls "just a drop in the bucket."
The interchanges alone would cost at least $70 million, said UDOT Region 1 Director Dyke LeFevre.
Ogden's projects are necessary with or without Olympic traffic, LeFevre said, because of growth and safety factors.
The South Weber Drive interchange would be made into an overpass. It would eliminate the need for a stoplight at an intersection level with fast moving traffic on U.S. 89.
The I-84 interchange would be designed to merge all traffic directly. Now, eastbound I-84 drivers must cross traffic and make a left turn to get on northbound 89.
Also on UDOT's want list is a transportation center at 23rd Street and Wall Avenue in Ogden, offering train and bus transportation and shuttles to Salt Lake City International Airport.
Ogden officials also are studying a possible tramway, proposed to start at either the Mount Ogden Park or Weber State University, to take people over Mount Ogden to Snowbasin.