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Articles by John Keahey |
March 12, 2001 DEVELOPERS PULL STRINGS AT UDOT, KEEP INTERSECTION SIMPLE -- AND LESS COSTLY By John Keahey © 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune WASHINGTON TERRACE -- The private developers of Utah's first modern-day toll road didn't like what they were hearing. State highway engineers, worried about motorist safety, were insisting that a new intersection at the end of the $8.9 million Weber County toll road carry a traffic signal or a European-style roundabout. Either could drive up costs by hundreds of thousands of dollars. Developers Doug and Bruce Stephens argued those remedies were not needed -- at least not yet. They wanted two $100 stop signs instead. So the father-and-son development team hired a retired Utah Department of Transportation executive as a consultant to plead the case to UDOT's top managers. In the end, the highway engineers' push could not match the developers' pull. The stop signs won out. "We feel the public's at risk," says Dave Kennison, a veteran UDOT traffic engineer based in Ogden. That is why engineers recommended a signal or a roundabout, he said. "The best solution is a roundabout," says Mack Christensen, a Taylorsville-based engineer who, like Kennison, has been with UDOT for 30 years. "The developers obviously wanted to get by as cheap as they could." The engineers are concerned about a mishmash of five intersecting roadways at the junction: the Adams Avenue toll road, Interstate 84 off- and on-ramps, the freeway overpass and a frontage road. The stop signs would go at the ends of the off-ramp and the frontage road. UDOT's Region I director, Ahmed Jaber, defends his agency's decision, saying that because the toll road will be unique in Utah, no one can predict how many cars will use it. "We will be watching traffic volumes and accident rates," Jaber said. "If they are higher than normal and a roundabout is the solution, that is the direction we will go." Bruce Stephens maintains he and his father are not trying to get by cheaply. He says they simply do not want to build something not yet needed. "Maybe a roundabout is best when traffic demands it," he said. If necessary, "we are not opposed to coming back and building one." But how did the Stephenses persuade UDOT bosses to go against their own professional staff? First, they hired retired UDOT Deputy Director Clint Topham as a consultant. He approached his successor, John Njord, and Executive Director Tom Warne. Within days, word came down to Jaber in Ogden: Let the Stephenses install stop signs. "We don't always agree on all issues here at UDOT," said Bruce Swenson, who oversees the toll-road intersection project for the state agency. "So the guys at the top are paid to make decisions. That's what [Njord and Warne] did." Swenson does not blame the Stephenses for going to his bosses. UDOT's engineers "wouldn't budge, so that was their only option." Said Bruce Stephens: "The only way I know how to get things accomplished is to sit down and have a good conversation and work out your differences. That's all we did." Could any developer working on a private road project get such an audience? "Absolutely," Njord insisted. The stop-sign decision represents an about-face for Njord. After a meeting with engineers last fall, he ordered Swenson to write a letter requiring a traffic light at the intersection. Swenson also was directed to offer the developer $50,000 of state money to defray some of the cost. Other engineers preferred a roundabout. When the toll road opens this spring, it will have neither a roundabout nor a signal. That could change someday, Njord noted, so he is requiring the Stephenses to put $200,000 in escrow until 2006. "If at any point within those five years the accident rate and number of vehicles require a roundabout or signal, we will use that $200,000 to do that," Njord said. Kennison says that will not be enough. He estimates that either a signal -- requiring significant road work in addition to the traffic light itself -- or a roundabout could cost between $800,000 and $1 million, and he worries that taxpayers would have to cough up the difference. An engineering firm hired by the developers estimates 8,800 cars a day could be using the toll road by 2020. But those consultants point out that determining the volume is pure guesswork, given the unknown nature of toll roads in Utah. The toll is expected to be less than $1. The Stephenses hope to develop 100 acres around the toll road and several other nearby parcels. "We don't have a time frame," Bruce Stephens said. "It will progress as the market demands. Most of the ground adjacent to the road will be commercial. Behind that will be residential development." Bruce's dad, Doug, has been a south Weber County developer and entrepreneur for 40 years. He is on the Bank of Utah board of directors and counts political leaders among his closest friends. Gov. Mike Leavitt attended the ceremonial groundbreaking for the road last summer. In 1998, state lawmakers departed from their normal practice of not identifying funds for a specific transportation project and granted a $2 million loan for the toll road. The project also netted $3 million from a special-improvement district that includes the Stephenses, Columbia Regional Medical Center and other major employers near the toll road. The road itself drops 263 feet in elevation from the top of a bluff to the intersection at I-84. The descent in parts is steep -- too steep for UDOT's comfort. But except for the intersection, the agency has no say about how the private road is built. Although Njord approved the stop signs, he has concerns about the road. "I worry about the surface. The soils seem unstable." |