Pointless roadwork is wasting my time
July 23, 2007
The Utah Department of Transportation began adding a white stripe to the I-15 commuter lane almost a year ago. The lane stripe extends for 38 miles along the I-15 corridor, according to www.news.utah.gov.
The idea was to turn the existing High Occupancy Vehicle lane into a High Occupancy Toll lane to generate more revenue for the Department of Transportation.
No one — except UDOT — seems to think this is a good idea. In fact, this move is just one in a long line of bad ideas proposed and implemented by UDOT.
Does anyone respect the extra white line? Especially if the “OK to exit” dashed portion of the white line is after the freeway exit that you need? Of course not.
How many times have you seen construction on one road completed and dug back up two weeks later? Far too often.
Would it be that hard to get it right the first time? And why does it seem that the entire valley must be shut down and put under construction at the same time?
At a commuter campus such as the U, the way in which the roads are constructed and maintained has a lot of impact on campus life and academics.
This is a commuter society that requires a lot of physical upkeep for things such as roads. The roads we have are susceptible to damage because of the freezing weather and high volume of traffic.
A large amount of maintenance work is required, but do all of the projects need to be started at the same time?
Surely it would make just as much sense for the entire UDOT crew to start on one end of the valley, repairing problems as they move north across the valley. Once the move north was accomplished and the repairs done, they could start over again. With this system, motorists would not be nearly as inconvenienced and the projects could be completed in a much shorter time.
Currently we are stuck with the idea that doing all of the major road construction and causing problems across the entire valley at the same time and working slower is better than closing small sections and working faster.
UDOT has even taking to placing signs and television ads stating that it is up to the motorist to know when and where the road construction is going to be taking place.
It is as though UDOT is washing its hands of any responsibility of when and how these projects are getting done. Whoever is in charge at UDOT is basically telling the rest of the state that any and all unpleasantness due to construction is just not UDOT’s problem.
Perhaps UDOT, and the state government for that matter, would benefit from looking at the effectiveness of their programs before they keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
