r/Utah • u/Original_Bell1394 • 1d ago
Other Utah County seriously needs to work on their infrastructure
Considering the fact that two major universities reside in Utah County, youd think they’d be working more on updating street layouts and such but it’s an absolute nightmare. Driving what should take 5 minutes usually ends up taking longer cause State street is a nightmare to navigate. Utah county is eventually gonna have to confront this reality. If they want to keep growing, changes HAVE to be made with our infrastructure. One bus line down university parkway simply isn’t the solution.
21
u/Super_Bucko 1d ago
The entire state of Utah needs to get on board with public transportation. Just about every major city in America relies on it. Utah is fixing to have population like in Anaheim or Chicago or Dallas or NYC. Beef up the f-ing busses and trains and watch how much easier it becomes to get places.
Unfortunately we suffer from being mostly built when cars got popular.
62
u/zesty-dancer14 Orem 1d ago
They have been making improvements over the course of the 10 years I've lived in this county.
They expanded the I-15 through Lehi from 4 lanes to 6 lanes (one way) along with the smoother on/off ramps.
They built the largest pedestrian bridge in the state over the I-15 in-between UVU and Wolverine crossing.
They wiped out an entire neighborhood of homes (in the midst of housing unaffordability) along 1600 N in Orem to make way for wider streets.
Those are just a few that I have noticed in the time I've lived here.
The issue isn't that they aren't updating. It's that creating automobile infrastructure only creates more demand for automobile infrastructure. A vicious cycle called induced demand
They need to make it more feasible to take alternative means of transportation other than cars.
19
u/Original_Bell1394 1d ago
Right, we need more public transportation options! Utah county is way too big to be car dependent
6
4
17
u/dallenbaldwin 1d ago
The beatings will continue until moral improves. And by moral, I mean the realization that car-centric infrastructure makes you less free. Most people in Utah County (Utah in general) are so attached to their cars they can't imagine a world where one is a nice to have and two is unnecessary surplus. That mentality means the people pulling the levers have to spent enormous political capital to make things worse for cars in order to make them better for people.
8
u/TheJGoldenKimball 1d ago
My great great grandfather was responsible for what you’re experiencing. I avoid Utah County like the plague and curse his name whenever I have to get off the freeway in that county. Sorry about that.
14
u/StarCraftDad Ogden 1d ago
More Bus Rapid Transit like the UVX. More Bus routes/high frequency and incentives to take the bus. Dedicated bus lanes will help that. We can't add one more lane and hope it will fix it.
7
u/Original_Bell1394 1d ago
Right, without dedicated bus lanes and lines that go to high density areas, buses become more of a nuisance than an option for transit
14
u/505engineer 1d ago
BYU civil engineering alumnus here.
Our pavement design professor cited University Avenue (a main thoroughfare near campus) as an infrastructure failure due to poor maintenance and design. Mind you, that was many years ago, so maybe things have changed since then.
Fun fact: at the time, BYU's main engineering building was the Wilford W. Clyde Building, named for the founder of what is now the Clyde Companies, including Geneva Rock, Sunroc, Sunpro, etc. Wilford's brother was George Dewey Clyde, the governor of Utah 1957-1965.
5
u/505engineer 1d ago
Another crazy fact: a year after his first wife Henrietta passed away, WW Clyde remarried to his wife's younger sister Jennie. This is called a "sororate marriage", sharing the same root word as "sorority." The children resulting from the two marriages were cousin-siblings.
5
u/rilesmcriles 1d ago
I suppose there’s nothing inherently wrong with that…but ick
3
u/505engineer 23h ago
Social norms have evolved a bit since then.
Keep in mind, in the 1920s, Utah Valley had still had plenty of polygamous families. My wife's great-great-grandmother, who had been a plural wife, was still alive at the time.
3
3
u/rafaelthecoonpoon 19h ago
This is (was) a common marriage practice across many cultures where marriages were important linkages between families/lineages. There is also levirate marriage where a man is obligated to marry his brother's widow (Seth Bullock in Deadwood is a literary example).
12
6
u/slayer_of_waspiz 1d ago
They're working on it. The problem is infrastructure takes north of a decade to plan, and the growth in northern ut county is like triple the predictions from the studies done in 2011.
The developers also fucked over the cities by building far more units than were planned without putting any assistance into infrastructure.
5
u/Dotrue 16h ago
Coming from a former public works employee in Utah County, that shit ain't happening until political attitudes change significantly in the county. I hope you're happy with the occasional bike lane separated by paint from vehicles traveling 40+mph. The vitriol we'd see in the comments when collecting public opinion on building new roundabouts, bus lines, bike lanes, or anything that wasn't car-centric was disgusting.
6
u/kyzersoze84 1d ago
The problem I see is that it seems they shut down multiple routes into or out of an area and create ridiculous traffic everywhere else.
5
u/Original_Bell1394 1d ago
Right, they keep putting bandages over an issue that requires more attention. We either need roads that fix the bottleneck or we need stronger public transportation options
5
u/donkeyballs42069 1d ago
I rely on my bicycle to get most places (I'm in AF, close to the frontrunner) and for me it's been pretty easy for the 3 years that I've lived here. But yeah, in other places nearby, it would be nice if things were more bike friendly tbqh.
Y'all drive like a horse's ass, so biking can be pretty scary in some places here...
3
u/Remote-alpine 19h ago
I interviewed with the Mountainland Association of Governments (the org that works with the municipalities in that area to develop transit plans; SLC is part of Wasatch Front Regional Council). They were very proud of their "suburban, rural, commuter" development. Starts from the top unfortunately. And now those decisions are baked into the roadway. Wider roads demonstrably don't fix traffic, this has been known for decades. But the decision-makers are older and want to have their cake and eat it too.
3
u/Adadave 18h ago
Part of the problem is just how we have laid out our cities in general. Everything is far away. You have square miles of housing and then one large district of offices and stores that everyone uses at best 1-3 routes to get to. Few live in reasonable distance to their work, most that do are college students.
5
u/--TaCo-- 1d ago
I mean, the county is represented by people who don't think the government should do anything to help the average person, so what do you expect?
5
u/Coldfriction 1d ago
Utah Valley once had more than one highway type road running north to south. They put I-15 in and put stop lights on all the other highways and slowed everything way down. Everyone now rushed to I-15 as the alternatives all suck. Local roads fail because traffic is too concentrated. There should be another fully grade separated road against the mountain that doesn't exist.
4
u/tchansen 1d ago
You keep electing them when they show how much they care about you and your issues by their actions.
Don't like the job they're doing? Don't vote for them.
4
u/Original_Bell1394 1d ago
I’m a registered Democrat but thanks for the preaching
1
u/tchansen 1d ago
Not preaching, at least no more than going on reddit to vent, hoping it will make a difference.
I'm not sure what being a registered party (either one) member has to do with anything - I stand by my statement of if you don't like what they're doing, do something about it.
2
1
u/ihate_snowandwinter 1d ago
No matter what, complaints will happen due to construction delays. Buying or condeming land takes years. Taxes. How much more are you willing to pay? Don't tell me we just need to cut government programs to pay for it. Our municipal and county governments are among the leanest in the county already. Are you taking public transit to help alleviate the problem? Yes, improvements need to be made. But they will only just keep up with growth. Also, depending on the street, it would be Orem, Provo, and UDOT that need to improve the roads. The county isn't responsible for the most part. If you go into rural Utah county, then it is the county commissions responsibility.
2
0
-2
u/takingnotes99 1d ago
I don't think you've lived in enough places to understand how good the infrastructure is in Utah County. They modified the streets to make the UVX line faster, they have been making it more bike friendly, there are sidewalks everywhere, the streets are wide. For the amount of people that live there, traffic moves along much better than most comparable places.
2
u/Original_Bell1394 1d ago
Ive lived in various different cities including Downtown SLC. Utah county has uniquely dated infrastructure. It needs severe revision with how busy it’s getting
-1
u/SilvermistInc 1d ago
Uh they are actively upgrading the roads. 1600 is being torn up in Orem to add more lanes
3
u/Original_Bell1394 1d ago
We dont need more lanes. Not everything needs a texas style approach. What we need is either better public transportation options or roads that are planned to anticipate a growth in population (bridges, tunnels, roundabouts, etc)
-4
28
u/Cythripio 1d ago
I don’t think people really grasp how insanely expensive roads are to build and maintain. The more sprawl, the more roads- which keeps adding to the obligations. So either they need to grow without sprawling or get used to tax increases.