A series of Salt Lake City road projects that sparked a state-ordered review earlier this year generally produced little impact on the city, Utah transportation officials determined after spending months reviewing traffic and other data.
However, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall said the city still plans to make changes to account for the considerations that the Utah Department of Transportation offered to Utah’s capital after being tasked through SB195 to study the traffic impacts of city projects that reduced some lanes of travel in the fast-growing city.
The city will present its plan to the state next month, completing another provision in the bill.
“You’re going to see change,” said Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall.
UDOT’s findings
UDOT zeroed in on 28 different routes within the study area that’s west of Foothill Drive, north of 2100 South, east of I-15 and south of 600 North that underwent “highway reduction” strategies over the past decade for bike lanes or other new features.
Thirteen past road projects fit the description, as well as 15 future projects, said UDOT director Carlos Braceras, as he presented the results to the Utah Legislature’s Transportation Interim Committee. The team found that about 23 lane miles were reduced over the past decade, and another 15 are planned, which only represent a little more than 5% of the study area’s total lane miles. About 6% of parking stalls were also lost.
In many cases, vehicle speeds and traffic volumes returned to pre-2020 levels after construction. Vehicular mobility became worse along sections of 200 East, 500 East and 900 South, but crash safety also improved for those sections of 500 East and 900 South. Safety improved along a section of 200 South, as well, with minimal mobility impact, while there was no mobility impact for a section of 400 East, but its safety worsened.
Transit and active transportation — such as biking — didn’t change or generally improved, while parking either didn’t change or worsened in most cases. Most of the data was too limited to definitively prove impacts, but the listed impacts at least fell within the margin of error, Braceras explained.
The team, he said, also found “negligible cumulative impacts” on environmental factors overall. Most business impacts were found throughout the duration of construction.
Various datasets were used to calculate traffic volumes and vehicle speeds, while other datapoints were used to isolate outside factors in the data, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the construction of a project. Yet, he said, a few key variables may have also factored into the data:
- Construction projects carried out by outside entities that could impact road travel.
- The population of the study area increased 30% from 2015 to 2025, double the countywide rate. Traffic increased by 14% to 15% within Salt Lake City, similar to countywide data.
- A project between UDOT and the city in 2018 to change signal timing “definitely played into” some of the travel times, as well.
UDOT’s study was commissioned through SB195, an omnibus transportation bill that sparked controversy this winter when an amendment was added for it to include a study of highway reduction strategy in Salt Lake City, as well as a one-year moratorium on road safety projects in the city.
State lawmakers and Salt Lake City went back and forth before settling on a final agreement that called for a study, as well as a pause of some projects within a narrowed study area. A survey released as part of the study also led to scutiny, as some residents feared that it might lean too heavily on commuter feedback rather than input from people living in the city.
What surveys found
Nearly 3,900 people responded to the survey, more than two-thirds of whom lived within the study area or adjacent to it. Over 90% of residents, businesses and commuters reported neutral or positive feelings about the projects, with the vast majority skewing toward neutral, UDOT reported on Wednesday. Approximately 60% of open-ended responses reported neutral or positive feelings about the projects, as well.
Many residents found a tradeoff between “safety gains” and lane changes, while the disruptions of construction were mentioned by more than a quarter of respondents.
“Proximity to the projects mattered,” Braceras said, pointing out that people living closest to a project often were most negative about construction impacts, which he said is often the case.
Feedback was also collected from many of the businesses within the study zone. They voiced issues with freight and delivery, emergency access, operation and maintenance and other access concerns. “Hidden costs” like efficiency constraints were the biggest economic concern that the study found, but future growth will likely also impact existing travel corridors, he said.
Instead of offering project recommendations, UDOT provided Salt Lake City with a few considerations when planning road safety projects that may ultimately reduce road lanes when it presented its study on Wednesday.
These include improvements to signal coordination within the study area, and preservation of some vehicle capacity routes, especially east-west routes connecting with freeways or the University of Utah. Adjustments in public engagement during the planning process and during construction were also suggested by UDOT.
“Overall, the big picture is not negative — it’s more neutral,” Braceras said, summarizing the findings. “The process, not the idea, is what’s at stake. Development and construction processes leave some people feeling unheard and harmed. Construction fatigue is real.”
Salt Lake City responds
Salt Lake City is “in agreement” with the findings, said Mendenhall, after UDOT’s presentation. She said the report can be used to help the city engage with residents and businesses while the city is planning a project, as well as during the construction of any project and feedback after a project is completed to see if it met the city’s goals.
SB195 requires the city to submit a mobility plan to UDOT for approval. That plan will dictate future decisions, which will revolve around some of the data collected in the study, Braceras told the committee.
“I like the framework this puts into place that allows our cities to have as much as possible,” said Sen. Kathleen Riebe, D-Cottonwood Heights, a member of the committee.
The city plans to first present its plan to the committee in November. It will also include new guidance on curb management and off-street parking, which weren’t required in the study, but were “obvious areas for improvement” gathered in the study process, Mendenhall added.
“We see — thanks to the SB195 process — great areas for improvement,” she said. “SB195 has helped us ... and we’re grateful for this process that we’ve been through.”