Hemming and Hahhing at the Hospital
A question posed at the hospital's meet-the-candidates event yesterday caught me off guard.
What can be done, they asked, to get a signal light at 1100 East and 50 South, where there's now a four-way stop?
You know the place. When I use that intersection, I always pack a lunch, because I know I'm going to be there for a long time.
When I was on the AF Junior High PTSA, we were able to talk the City Council into giving us a four-way stop for the intersection of 1120 North and 150 West. It was an achievement, but it wasn't ALL that difficult. We did some traffic counting, made our case, listened to the mayor speechify, did some more traffic counting, and voila -- we got our stop signs.
But this intersection is tricky because it straddles three jurisdictions: American Fork, Pleasant Grove, and Utah County.
So I didn't know how to answer yesterday, and it rankled me.
This morning, I did some research.
I went to UDOT's Web site and read about their criteria for locating traffic signals. I learned the price tag for a typical installation: $150,000. (Cheap!) But I couldn't find the answer to my question: Who has jurisdiction over that intersection?
In other words, do we have to go through UDOT to get a traffic signal here, or can we do it ourselves?
So I picked up the phone and called UDOT. The very nice person on the other end of the line didn't know the answer, either.
She's going to have some one call me.
In the meantime, I am browsing the World Wide Web and have learned an intensely interesting bit of history.
I learned how the new Pleasant Grove freeway exit came to be.
I had thought it was the result of long-term study and planning on the part of UDOT. I was wrong.
That interchange was initiated by Pleasant Grove's economic development director. He forged a partnership between Pleasant Grove, Lindon, and a large land-owner. They hired an engineering firm to analyze the cost -- $11 million -- then raised half that money before proposing it to UDOT and asking for the other half.
This is intensely interesting to me because economic development is the most important principle underlying the intersection at 1100 East.
Sure, I gripe when I'm stuck there. But the hospital, as we learned yesterday, has a bigger problem. It's concerned about losing business -- specifically, Lehi's business -- to IHC's new facility in north Salt Lake County.
Why, when you're ten centimeters dilated, should you sit in gridlock in American Fork when you can zoom right off the freeway in Riverton?
Now a light clicks on in my mind. Here is the point we missed yesterday at the hospital.
This is not just a matter for the city engineers. This intersection should be the red flag item, the hot-button issue, the number one entry on the to-do list of our city's economic development director.
The only problem is --
OUR CITY DOESN'T HAVE AN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR.
Economic development is just one of the duties of one of our staffers.
Did I not say something, elsewhere, about our city's need for proactive economic development?
I rest my case.
What can be done, they asked, to get a signal light at 1100 East and 50 South, where there's now a four-way stop?
You know the place. When I use that intersection, I always pack a lunch, because I know I'm going to be there for a long time.
When I was on the AF Junior High PTSA, we were able to talk the City Council into giving us a four-way stop for the intersection of 1120 North and 150 West. It was an achievement, but it wasn't ALL that difficult. We did some traffic counting, made our case, listened to the mayor speechify, did some more traffic counting, and voila -- we got our stop signs.
But this intersection is tricky because it straddles three jurisdictions: American Fork, Pleasant Grove, and Utah County.
So I didn't know how to answer yesterday, and it rankled me.
This morning, I did some research.
I went to UDOT's Web site and read about their criteria for locating traffic signals. I learned the price tag for a typical installation: $150,000. (Cheap!) But I couldn't find the answer to my question: Who has jurisdiction over that intersection?
In other words, do we have to go through UDOT to get a traffic signal here, or can we do it ourselves?
So I picked up the phone and called UDOT. The very nice person on the other end of the line didn't know the answer, either.
She's going to have some one call me.
In the meantime, I am browsing the World Wide Web and have learned an intensely interesting bit of history.
I learned how the new Pleasant Grove freeway exit came to be.
I had thought it was the result of long-term study and planning on the part of UDOT. I was wrong.
That interchange was initiated by Pleasant Grove's economic development director. He forged a partnership between Pleasant Grove, Lindon, and a large land-owner. They hired an engineering firm to analyze the cost -- $11 million -- then raised half that money before proposing it to UDOT and asking for the other half.
This is intensely interesting to me because economic development is the most important principle underlying the intersection at 1100 East.
Sure, I gripe when I'm stuck there. But the hospital, as we learned yesterday, has a bigger problem. It's concerned about losing business -- specifically, Lehi's business -- to IHC's new facility in north Salt Lake County.
Why, when you're ten centimeters dilated, should you sit in gridlock in American Fork when you can zoom right off the freeway in Riverton?
Now a light clicks on in my mind. Here is the point we missed yesterday at the hospital.
This is not just a matter for the city engineers. This intersection should be the red flag item, the hot-button issue, the number one entry on the to-do list of our city's economic development director.
The only problem is --
OUR CITY DOESN'T HAVE AN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR.
Economic development is just one of the duties of one of our staffers.
Did I not say something, elsewhere, about our city's need for proactive economic development?
I rest my case.
posted by Heidi Rodeback at 2:52 PM
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