This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2009, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Regional transportation planners want to remake Foothill Drive to help carpools and express buses speed students and workers to and from the University of Utah.
It's not enough for some Salt Lake City Council members, who heard the plan Tuesday but said they want light rail -- and not just up Foothill, but all the way to Park City.
"Anything that encourages more cars is short-sighted and yesterday's planning," Councilman J.T. Martin said.
A study by the Wasatch Front Regional Council and consultants recommends changing the thoroughfare's center turn lane into a reversible lane during rush hours, moving cars north to the U. by morning and south by evening. The outer lanes would allow only carpools and buses during peak hours in either direction, encouraging people to get out of their cars or at least not drive alone.
Martin and others said the plan focuses too much on moving cars through. Switching to light rail could help reshape land uses, leading to denser housing and new development east of the road, they said.
"What a wasted opportunity," Councilman Luke Garrott said of the Wasatch Front study. He agreed that the plan would cement the current landscape and promote cars instead of using light rail to reshape a major gateway to the city.
"We need a train to Park City, bad," Garrott said.
But in its study, the regional council dismissed light rail for the foreseeable future, partly because current land uses wouldn't support it, said Wasatch Front Deputy Director Doug Hattery. Most people riding transit through the corridor are coming from far off, south of I-80. Express buses make more sense than trains that make frequent stops, he said.
The Foothill Boulevard corridor currently handles about 46,000 daily car trips, which is down a few thousand from the days of Interstate 15 reconstruction in the late 1990s, according to Wasatch Front. Equipping it with reversible lanes and new buses to handle future growth would cost the Utah Department of Transportation and UTA about $15 million, the regional council estimates.
Wasatch Front's plan is just a recommendation, and would require cooperation from the Utah Department of Transportation, the Utah Transit Authority, the city and the university.
It wouldn't change the road's width in the seven lanes north of Sunnyside Avenue. South from there to Interstate 80, though, the road narrows and would need two new lanes. That means removing a landscaped median that Wasatch Front Deputy Director Doug Hattery said some neighbors hold dear.
"That landscaped median is going to become an issue," Hattery said Tuesday, before presenting the council's plan to the City Council. It could mean, initially, only the northern portion shifts.
Left turns during rush hour already are murder on Foothill, but the plan could eliminate them altogether from 6-9 a.m. and 4-7 p.m. That, coupled with the change to bus and carpool lanes could affect some businesses.
"It sounds like it would close our driveway off," said Mark Murphy, general manager of Red Butte Cafe at the Foothill Village shopping center.
He hadn't heard of the plan before Tuesday and said he hadn't formed an opinion. Cutting off left turns could affect business, though, he said.
The regional council's plan includes a possible tweak that keeps those turns but reduces oncoming traffic lanes during peak hours. It would mean making the center lane reversible and alternating between the lanes to either side of it for turning vehicles, reducing oncoming traffic to two lanes.
A switch to bus and carpool lanes probably would take several years, Hattery said. In fact, restricting a lane now would only further clog traffic, because about 85 percent of commuters on Foothill drive by themselves. As more people are drawn to buses -- Wasatch Front recommends added mid-day express buses for people who aren't on campus all day -- the lane shifts could occur over the next decade or so.
In the meantime, the regional transportation-planning council recommends adding a third lefthand turn lane on Sunnyside to handle traffic heading onto southbound Foothill. The Utah Transit Authority should increase the frequency of buses from Sandy and Holladay, and perhaps add a route from Park City, the council recommends. Pedestrians facing the wide asphalt also deserve countdown timers showing them the time remaining to cross, Hattery said.