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Show I Feasibility Study Completed For Proposed State Highway The Utah State De-I De-I rinment of Highways i;s now completed the i ijcor.d part of its feas-I feas-I ;:litv study of the road ::m the Dewey Bridge j Colorado. The report jS now been sent to the siie Legislative Coun-ril Coun-ril along with the contusion con-tusion "that the proved pro-ved route is feasible, -.d should be included ' j the long-range plan. . irtwoing uiat tonus can v x obtained for it in the ame manner as for the Lake Powell Highway." The study also concluded con-cluded that such a road could be built for an estimated es-timated cost of S3. 3 million mil-lion for Utah's 16 miles route. The proposed road is located in the Northeastern North-eastern part of Grand County and would begin on the west bank of the Colorado River approximately approx-imately three mrc? north ot the . iJewey Bridge on State Highway 128. The route would then proceed northeasterly northeast-erly to the Colorado State line, joining with the Colorado route there and would connect U-128 with the Colorado road through Glade Park and Colorado National Monument Mon-ument to Grand Junction. Junc-tion. Included in the report are traffic projections for the area involved in the project. The following follow-ing traffic analysis is based upon the assumption assump-tion that the Lake Powell L Cfcr cvL',? V t IS .. 'r yv Highway is completed in its entirety, and the road under study will be an extension to that highway, opening a through recreation corridor cor-ridor from Page, Ariz, to Grand Junction, Colo. A traffic analysis has been completed and is based in part on findings find-ings from a tourist study conducted by Utah State University. This analysis shows a 1971 average daily traffic traf-fic assignment of 200 vehicles per day on U-128 betweenMoaband Interstate 70 near Cisco. Cis-co. By applying a conservative con-servative growth rate of 3.5 per centperyear, there would be an average aver-age of 332 vehicles per day on this section of road in 1990. National Park Service records show that in 1971, 482,000 persons visited the Colorado National Monument. Using Us-ing an average of 3.5 persons per vehicle, the average daily traffic volume, at this National Monument during 1971 was 377 vehicles. The National Park Service has estimated that by 1980 there would be about ab-out 611,400 visitors. By projecting this same growth rate to 1990, an estimate of 580 vehicles per day could be assigned to this National Nat-ional Monument. Manual traffic counts in Southeastern Utah show approximately 50 per cent of the travel is comprised of out-of-state vehicles. On this basis half of the 580 vehicles, or 295, could be assigned to the section of road between the Colorado National Monument and U-128, near Fisher Towers. The 295 vehicles per day plus the previously assigned as-signed 332 vehicles per day would make a 1990 total of 627 vehicles per day on U-128. Engineers report that although the proposed route would be shorter than the present route to Grand Junction, travel tra-vel time would be about ab-out the same since the road would be set with lower speed limits. If the road is left on the current priority list, it would be many years before construction could be started, according ac-cording to the report. It will be necessary, then, to move the priority prior-ity ahead to accommodate accommo-date this scenic stretch of highway. |