On the final day for comments on the proposed Legacy Parkway, Davis County governments and Utah environmentalists found themselves submitting diametrically opposed arguments to the Utah Department of Transportation.
Davis County needs and wants the new highway, its elected officials are saying."We wish to state strongly that the 'No Build Alternative' is not realistic or acceptable to us," wrote Davis County commissioners and the mayors of 15 Davis County cities in a letter to UDOT.
"While we support the need for more public transit in our area, it is obvious to us that the demand that will be generated by future growth cannot be met on I-15 and by transit alone," wrote the Davis officials. They also rejected the easternmost of three possible highway paths, Alternative A, as having the most "adverse social, economic and land use impacts."
The officials also warned that they would not be able to support a proposed 1,500-acre Legacy Nature Preserve along the shore of the Great Salt Lake unless Alternative C, the westernmost path, is adopted.
"Farmington has taken the position that we need (the Legacy Parkway) and to anyone who sits on I-15 early in the morning, it's obvious why," Mayor Greg Bell said.
If the parkway is not built, "Farmington is going to have a huge impact because I-15 and U.S. 89 merge right in Farmington and that's where the heavy traffic begins," said Farmington City Manager Max Forbush.
Increasing numbers of drivers detouring through Farmington will affect pedestrian safety, increase emergency response time, destroy the walkable character of the community and lower property values, Forbush said. "We will suffer the brunt of some environmentalist's idea that more people can ride the bus."
Increasing congestion is also one of the reasons why Centerville officials want the parkway.
"We desperately need a Legacy Parkway because congestion in our city is already at an unacceptable level," said Centerville City Manager Steve Thacker.
Of particular concern is increasing traffic on Main Street, which is the main feeder to the city's junior high school and several elementary schools. Thacker said the Davis County School District has come out in favor of the highway due to similar concerns countywide.
For Centerville, adoption of the Locally Preferred Alternative (C) is also important because it would preserve 100 to 200 acres of developed and developable land the city would like to use for industrial development, Thacker said.
For Woods Cross, the parkway would alleviate congestion and its westernmost alignment would preserve the city's integrity, said City Manager Gary Uresk.
"The Locally Preferred Alternative (C) is the least damaging to Woods Cross because it doesn't segment our community. We're already segmented by I-15, two railroads, a power line corridor, and two petroleum pipelines."
The loss of developable land under Alternative A would be significant, Uresk said.
As for the idea of not building a new highway at all, Uresk said that it makes sense to allow an area which is already developed to fill in the pockets and take advantage of existing infrastructure.
"If this development is not allowed to occur here, it will go somewhere else, maybe on the urban fringe into areas that may be even more environmentally sensitive," Uresk said.
For their part, a coalition of environmental organizations was rushing on Friday afternoon to complete a 100-page-plus document opposing the proposed 13-mile highway from Salt Lake City to Farmington.
"They've only been looking at a road," said Marc Heileson of the Utah Chapter of the Sierra Club. "There are other less damaging alternatives that they have not done a fair job of analyzing. This highway is not needed."
The Sierra Club and its allies, Friends of Great Salt Lake, Audubon Society, Future Moves Coalition, Environmental Defense Fund, Farmington Bay Advocates and Wasatch Clean Air Coalition, want UDOT to "look at improved transit and transit oriented development," Heileson said.