Heber Valley governments consider sending letter to UDOT in support of traffic diversion

A committee of Wasatch community representatives decided that action needed to be taken on the long-awaited and delayed alternative route to ease traffic congestion in downtown Heber City. So they decided to write a letter together.

“This is a concept that was developed a few months ago in the corridor discussions,” Heber City Councilwoman Yvonne Barney said last week at a Wasatch County Council meeting with representatives from the Wasatch School District, Midway and the city of Heber. “The purpose of that meeting was to bring together multiple community entities and have a discussion and an agreement, and that agreement is something we would present to the (Utah Department of Transportation).”

She read a draft of a letter to Carlos Braceras, UDOT’s executive director.

The document lists five goals for a route that local governments can unite around: the route should preserve as much of the valley’s northern fields as possible, should focus on quality of life and safety, should have limited access points to maintain traffic flow, should consider and support Heber City’s long-term vision for a revitalized downtown, and should have minimal environmental impact.

“We look forward to working with you and UDOT Region 3 representatives as you present the results of the environmental impact study and make recommendations to finalize a corridor alignment that achieves the five priority outcomes listed above,” the letter states.

Barney said the purpose of the message is not so much to serve any particular entity as to promote communication between local governments.

“Without communication between entities, there is no action,” Barney said. “We start having frustrating conversations about who did what. (…) That’s what this measure is trying to eliminate.”

If no progress is made, she added, she will be 80 years old and still hear community conversations that boil down to lawsuits.

“We want to make sure that whatever is done is done the right way,” she said.

After a few minutes of discussion, she added a few sentences to her presentation that reflected what others were saying: “However, we want things to happen on our terms. This is our community.”

Heber City Councilman Scott Phillips said the letter is also intended to show UDOT’s unity among valley governments.

“UDOT has been getting mixed messages,” he said. “What they’re looking for is some kind of unity to support their process.”

These “mixed messages” became common when, after UDOT released five alternative routes for the corridor in the summer of 2022, Wasatch County passed a resolution strongly urging them not to pursue routes that cross the North Fields.

While Heber City Mayor Heidi Franco and some council members have expressed similar disdain for those routes, the city of Heber as a whole has remained open to whatever route UDOT feels best fits the needs of the community.

In March, the Wasatch County Council voted to spend $2.3 million on a land conservation easement, even after UDOT project manager Craig Hancock publicly said it could pose a “significant obstacle” and “send a mixed message to UDOT that the community is not fully supportive of the process we’re in.”

“I asked them what was most helpful,” Phillips said. “What he said was, ‘Can you think of priorities that all the entities can agree on?’”

These are the priorities that have been followed to the letter, he said.

“If we can vote on these projects in our separate entities, that’s all we need,” he said. “We’re not trying to perfect it. We’re not trying to make it exactly the way we want it.”

At the top of the letter, Barney encouraged each entity to contact UDOT with their individual questions and share what they find.

“It’s a problem that affects the entire valley,” she said.

Phillips agreed, saying Google Maps has started sending travelers from Provo to Park City via Midway.

“Midway becomes, by default, the bypass,” he said.

The representatives decided to forward the letter to their local governments, and Phillips encouraged them not to deviate from what had already been compiled, but to vote on the letter.

“It doesn’t require a lot of discussion,” he said. “Do you want to vote on this or not? (…) We don’t need to have four different letters and try to merge them into one.”

Wasatch County Councilman Mark Nelson expressed respect for everyone, but warned those who wrote the letter that they would not appreciate his comments. He said UDOT officials have often heard everything in the letter, and to say you support something but add five conditions is a bit of a conundrum.

“If we really want to tell them we support them, we just have to end the letter after the first paragraph,” he said. “They know all this, and all this is an obstacle.”

Barney said UDOT has not heard all of the unified governments’ concerns and that the letter simply shares community priorities, not restrictions.

Ultimately, community leaders decided to review the letter in their individual meetings and revisit it as a group in August.