Too many cooks in the kitchen of downtown road construction 

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Today, I left our downtown office and drove east via 200 South on my way to lunch at The Other Place Restaurant. I did the same two weeks ago, an action that caused me to write my July 13 column about the stretch of 200 South extending from 900 East to 400 West, aka the "Burma Road."

That column—basically a WTF screed wrought of far-too-much confusion felt by anyone walking, biking or driving along the orange-cone zone—bemoaned the fact that 200 South has become a nightmare for nearly anyone entering downtown. Business owners along 200 South have made repeated claims that the construction project has negatively impacted their businesses and that the city has failed to listen to their complaints or better inform people about what is going on, explain what the project even is or meet expected construction deadlines.

The only folks happy that 200 South is getting so much attention are those who were equally discombobulated during two construction projects that seemed to last forever along both 300 West and 900 South. After their own streets recently returned to normal—and indeed with much needed aesthetic and safety improvements for pedestrians and bikers (with little effect on auto commuters)—they're tickled to see a different city street get the negative attention. One hopes that the requisite business returns to 300 West and 900 South now that those streets are once again smooth.

It's always a trial for local business when construction projects hinder their operations. Street business is always the most impacted—the mom & pops, the local retailer, restaurant or bar. But it's equally a trial for anyone using those lanes as they enter or exit a city. For some, their new traffic patterns may never return to what they were, thus they not only impact the local businesses again, but also add new pressures to other passageways through town.

It's not well-known, but at no point in Salt Lake City history has it experienced this level of construction, not just downtown but also heavily into Sugar House and along any number of lesser projects on other streets in less publicized neighborhoods. Add in the extreme level of new construction for both office and living space, and you have the recipe for lots of big messes that occurred because little messes weren't so artfully dealt with.

An example is back to 200 South and its intersection with State Street. Today I noticed that at the same location, construction crews are replacing pipes below 200 South while separate construction crews are building what will become the city's tallest building. At street level, they compete for space to conduct work with their heavy equipment. Given just that single ill-coordinated John Deere standoff, it's no wonder construction timelines and promises go out the window.

When work slows, people start watching their pocketbooks, and businesses start watching their calendars. When the cold turns to heat, and summer turns to fall, most everyone is sick of it all and point fingers in every direction. Currently, most fingers point at the city, especially from a vocal group of local business owners who claim that Salt Lake City has not done well by them on either the communications nor the sympathy-meter front.

Our office is on 200 South, so it's not like we haven't been witness to it all—and as in the July 13 column, we equally remember the decades of hell spat upon Main Street during beautifications and Trax construction. Still, the impact on us only rises to the level of someone who must use our back door instead of our front or in situations like mine when I have a hankering for a Greek salad up the street, and I travel the gauntlet. City Weekly isn't a retailer, and we don't sell sandwiches, but it will never be lost on us that local businesses come first and that the bustle of Main Street on most nights these days takes place on the skeletons of Main Street businesses that were forced off of Main.

I don't want to see that happen again on 200 South to places likes Johnny's SLC, the Beer Bar, Bar X, Taqueria 27, La Cevicheria, Laziz Kitchen Downtown, Gallenson's Gun Shop, Nacho Daddy, Carson Kitchen, Siegfried's Delicatessen, Toasters—the whole lot of them and many more that can't understand why it's so goddamned hard and takes so long to lay a pipeline. That pipeline, chosen to route down 200 South as the best city alternative, plus replacing extremely old surface streets, are two reasons why construction began in the first place. Stapled onto the project are much needed bike- and mass-transit lanes.

Those transit lanes and some sundry water infrastructure builds are nearly the extent of the city side of the project. The rest of it—the major delays, the dirt and dust, the cones, the flashing barricades, the pipes laying all over—belongs to Dominion Energy. It's their project. They are just as slow to build on 200 South as was Rocky Mountain Power along the 900 South project.

Both of those are behemoths, utility monopolies with little motivation to move a molehill, much less a mountain. There's no one else to call. So, it's hardly surprising that it's likely to get worse on 200 South and downtown generally. Why the city doesn't call them out is beyond me.

The pipes being laid east to west must somehow traverse State Street which is under the authority of UDOT, not the city. Road closures there will be determined by a new boss. Same for Main Street—can you believe the organizations charged with laying those pipes did not plan sufficiently for the hole-boring that must be done beneath the TRAX lines to connect the pipeline? Well, they didn't. Fun times ahead, folks.

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