The public comment deadline has passed on Utah Department of Transportation’s proposal to build a freeway from Farmington to Hooper. Critics of the West Davis Corridor say UDOT needs to back up and take another look.
Steve Erickson is with a group promoting another alternative, the so-called “Shared Solution.” It would scrap the freeway and instead improve east-west routes across the county leading to FrontRunner and I-15.
“They do have to produce a final environmental impact statement," Erickson says, "so that would give them an opportunity to re-examine what they’ve chosen so far and hopefully agree to do a supplemental environmental impact statement and revise the project.”
Davis County Commissioner Bret Millburn says both approaches have some merit.
“All kinds of options need to be explored and, to varying degrees, implemented," Millburn tells KUER. "I don’t think there’s one silver bullet, whether it’s the corridor and placing a roadway there or, there’s no silver bullet strictly in the Shared Solutions.”
UDOT’s proposed route would impact wetland areas along the eastern shore of the Great Salt Lake, and that’s drawn criticism from the U-S Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency as well as the Department of the Interior. That’s angered Republican Congressman Rob Bishop, who says the government is “callous” in its disregard for property owners whose homes could be sacrificed to save wetlands.
The final environmental impact statement is due in the spring of 2014.
