Utah House swerves on bill seizing Salt Lake City's authority over local streets.
U-Turn
By Benjamin Wood @BjaminWood
A tenuous compromise over traffic management in Salt Lake City appeared to go up in smoke on Tuesday, with the Utah House voting to approve a bill that would halt all street safety projects in the state capital, including work on new protected cycling paths that is scheduled to break ground in the coming weeks.
Representatives voted 60-14, largely along party lines, for SB195, after first amending the bill to undo the progress of a 5th Substitute version that was adopted in committee in response to pushback from Salt Lake residents and a series of closed-door negotiations with city representatives.
Where the 5th Substitute narrowed the scope of a moratorium on street projects to include only "collector" and "arterial" roadways, the House amended the language back to "highway," an imprecise bit of legalese that, in the context of SB195, includes any and all streets in Salt Lake City. This means SB195 prevents everything from large-scale reconstruction of a major thoroughfare to a new stop sign or crosswalk near a school on a quiet neighborhood street.
Where the 5th Substitute excluded street projects that are advertised for contract by March 7—allowing work on the 400 South Viaduct Trail and 300 West Bikeway to proceed—the new House amendments tighten that exclusion only to contracts awarded by February 25, which would likely delay both of those projects for years, if they are ever restarted.
The House amendments also extend the duration of the moratorium period, while also seeming to give an even greater degree of project-level veto authority to the Utah Department of Transportation, which owns and operates the most deadly corridors that pass through the city and which has long resisted calls to improve safety for pedestrians, cyclists, transit riders and other non-drivers in its designs, investment and planning.
The late hour of the House vote, around 9 p.m. Tuesday, made confirmation of the amendment particulars difficult. A spokesman for Mayor Erin Mendenhall confirmed that the new changes were under review by City Hall, but was otherwise unable to comment. And a request for clarification to the bill's sponsor was unsuccessful.
Because of the House amendments, SB195 must undergo a procedural concurrence vote in the Senate before passing the Legislature outright. But that could happen as soon as Wednesday morning, with the Senate having already voted 19-6 in favor of a comparably restrictive version of SB195.
The bill generated little debate on the House floor, which included only a perfunctory—and arguably deceptive—presentation by the bill's House sponsor, Lehi Republican Rep. Kay Christofferson. Christofferson implied to his colleagues that the new House amendments were in keeping with the spirit of compromise achieved with Salt Lake City, despite actively undermining the city's concerns and requests for the legislation. And Christofferson had to be corrected by Salt Lake City Democratic Rep. Angela Romero that the amendment's use of "highway" would broaden the bill's scope to include—and impede safety improvements on—all city streets.
"It’s like bill after bill after bill after bill here tries to tell Salt Lake City what to do," Romero said.
About The Author
Benjamin Wood
Lifelong Utahn Benjamin Wood has worn the mantle of City Weekly's news editor since 2021. He studied journalism at Utah State University and previously wrote for The Salt Lake Tribune, the Deseret News and Entertainment Weekly
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