COUNTERPOINT: Utah’s Legacy Highway — Key to lessening congestion
My dad had a favorite saying, “The truth is usually somewhere between the two sides of any argument.”
When discussing the Legacy Highway with anyone, you are likely to hear one of two stories. The first is that the Legacy Highway is a big mistake, that it would endanger a good deal of bird habitat, and that if we would just build a commuter rail system, we would not even need it.
The second story you are likely to hear is that a commuter rail cannot solve the dreadful traffic congestion between Layton and Salt Lake, and along the Wasatch front, in general, during rush hour, because no one is going to give up their car to ride a train to work.
Let’s ignore both of those stories for a minute, and look at what we know for sure.
First of all, traffic is very bad during certain times of the day. So bad that you sit in your car, without moving, for minutes on end, and when you are moving, it is only stop and go.
Second, most of the pollution emitted from cars comes when they are stopping and starting, not when they are traveling at “highway speeds” (which, of course is under the speed limit, because we know that no Utahns exceed the speed limit, right?) The pollution from semi-trucks is even worse because of the high amount of energy needed to get such a heavy load moving.
Finally, Utahns love their cars. However, they love their cars, in part, because of the long distances between cities, and because the only other option available to them currently is Greyhound, which can be a pretty scary experience at times.
Well, back to the idea of the Legacy Highway and commuter rail. Building the Legacy Highway has many positives. It would reduce the congestion on I-15 by nearly doubling the number of cars that could be heading north or south at any given time. In reducing the starting and stopping of cars and semi-trucks, it would also greatly reduce the smog we all hate. There are valid concerns about trying to simply build more roads to accommodate traffic, however, and expecting the Legacy Highway to solve traffic problems once and for all is probably a little short-sighted. It is a start, but not a panacea.
There are some who worry about the effect on bird habitat. There is some bird habitat that would be affected, but with the exception of extremists who believe that no amount of habitat loss is ever justified, most observers agree that the effect of the Legacy Highway will be minimal, and that the potential for improving air quality could actually improve the bird habitat overall.
Relative to commuter rail, there would certainly be some people who would use it if built, and that would reduce the number of cars on the highway. However, there are limits to how many people can comfortably ride a train at any given time. If too many people were riding the train, some would leave the train and go back to their cars, because of the misery of riding on a crowded train. Anyone who claims that enough people will leave the road to ride the train has obviously never driven from Farmington to Salt Lake City during rush hour. Commuter rail can only do part of the job.
In the end, I think my dad had it right. Commuter rail is an important part of any plan for the future of commuter traffic along the Wasatch Front, but so is the Legacy Highway. Most other major metropolitan areas have some form of commuter rail, and if it were tied into TRAX well enough, it would be a great benefit.
However, a bypass like the Legacy Highway would allow much of the through traffic, especially semi-trailers, to avoid stop-and-go traffic, greatly improving air quality. The key, and the point that most combatants miss is that neither one of these ideas is a cure-all solution, and that they are not mutually exclusive.
If used together, they have great potential, but it would require rabid environmentalists and liberals, as well as rabid conservatives, to sit down and agree that the other side has something of value to add to the conversation. I don’t know if I have much faith in that happening. Maybe if I introduced them to Dad…
Jeremy Kidd is a graduate student in economics. Comments can be sent to him at jeremykidd@cc.usu.edu