EAST-WEST Mobility

[rfsanders]

I really feel the document needs to address east-west mobility. It's a SERIOUS problem, and it's only going to get worse by 2030.

Ideally, the city needs to consider widening either 800 North or 1460 North with access to I-15. This fits with the Section 12 goal: "Move large volumes of traffic on arterial and collector roads to lessen traffic in residential neighborhood"

Cars need to move east-and-west, not just north-and-south. Cars need to move east-and-west in the neighborhoods between University Parkway and Center Street, too.

[transguy]

This is absolutely true. The City should be spending money on east-west mobility such as 820 N rather than studying options for a northwest connector, another unecessary north/south connection that will duplicate the current Lakeshore Drive connection. The southwest connector makes a great deal of sense, but the northwest connector makes no sense at all for these reasons :

1. There is no reasonable destination on the northwest end of the proposed road - Geneva Road at 2000 N. It will only dump traffic onto Geneva Road, which has enough traffic, or into the roundabout at 2000 N and Sandhill Road, which is not built to handle much larger volumes of traffic.

2. Traffic from the airport that has a northern destination will most likely use Center St. east to the new $30 million+ nterchange at I-15, then head north on I-15. I know that I will not drive an extra 4-5 miles on City streets to access the interstate when it will be very accessible from the new, improved Center St. interchange.

3. Lakeshore Drive, with the new $2 million "bridge to nowhere" that now connects Lakeshore Drive to Center St. at 3110 West, is carrying hardly any additional traffic than before the bridge was built. 3110 West connects Lakeshore Drive directly to the airport, and yet virtually no traffic is using that route to Geneva Road. Another parallel road between Lakeshore Drive and the lake is unnecessary. The Mountainland Association of Governments (MAG) traffic modeling that was recently done indicates this proposed road will only generate enough traffic in the next 30 years to barely justify a collector street, and yet the City staff made them change the designation on the MAG Regional Transportation Plan to an arterial. There is no technical justification for a new arterial road in this alignment.

4. I know the developers of the yet-to-be-built "Celebration" or "Villages" development do not want that northwest connector coming through their development and forming a dangerous barrier for their future residents, but they acquiesced to the City staff as they knew the staff was determined to have this road. The developers and their consultants did not want to do anything to harm their chances of development approval, so they put it into their plans.

If this proposed road was connecting to another road that has an interchange with I-15, it might make more sense, but it does not. I know that the City staff and City Council members have their minds made up on this, and I share the frustration of residents that fear the options presented at the open house will be options that are intended to make what they want look good.

With a $17 million need for improved sewer service in west Provo, and a tremendous backlog of deferred maintenance on the City street system, it seems less than prudent to be considering spending $12-15 million on another "road to nowhere."

Thanks for listening