Utah Transportation Commission selects projects for budget cuts

TAYLORSVILLE (Deseret News) — Eagle Mountain Mayor Heather Jackson described navigating through traffic congestion from her home in northwest Utah County to the Utah Transportation Commission meeting on Wednesday morning.

Main Street, the most direct road to I-15, is just one lane in each direction. And shortly after she arrived at the meeting, her hopes of getting it expanded to two lanes were dashed.

Jackson's project was among 11 that the commission chose to delay to shed $113 million from various Utah Department of Transportation accounts so the state can use it and bond for $89 million to construct $202 million worth of new buildings, most of them on university campuses.

The plan was part of a large state funding bill that the Utah Legislature passed on the last night of the session in March. The state faced revenue shortfalls into the hundreds of millions of dollars, and no state agency has been left out of funding cuts.

The Transportation Commission spent a chunk of Tuesday considering various projects to delay, but the pickings were slim, said Bill Lawrence, UDOT's program finance director.

Original Article