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Show State Road Commission Holds Lengthy Moab Session Friday Fran Barnes Tie Utah State Road Com-I-ssioq held its regular itia? in Moab last Friday 15 a part of its policy of jV-ating meeting sites within - state so as to provide a ?lic fomm for local high-iy high-iy problems. The meeting had all the out-'ird out-'ird appearances of being routine , yet may produce re-S'Us re-S'Us of major importance bc'Jl locally and state-wide. . The first part of the meet-Jj? meet-Jj? as, indeed, routine: approval ap-proval of minutes, financial r-p5rts, approval of personal person-al matters, right-of-way s-ttlements, scheduling, ap-Prrjval ap-Prrjval of travel to out-of-'e 'raining programs and 'wkshops. This last item, however, Uined something of spe-"ai spe-"ai interest to citizens of pastern Utah. A High- J Department engineer w attending a "Work-P "Work-P on Expansive Clays and "r"Jes Highway Design and Construction" in Denver. Part of this workshop will be discussions of the problems pro-blems of building stablehigh-ways stablehigh-ways across such "expansive" "expan-sive" soils as the Mancos Shale that plagues our local highways and airstrips. An item also appeared on the agenda that will have long-range, state-wide repercussions, re-percussions, no matter how it is settled. The situation is deceptively simple in appear-: ance. In the area of a pro-Cootinued pro-Cootinued on Page A-ll 1 1 .: '..'''. '' -- -J k ' ... j rs the SUte Road Commissetin Moab last Friday in reg ular : session. While here, they listened to a number p residents concerning speed limits and improvement. Colorado Rivor i State Road Commission Holds lengthy Moab Session Friday tmufd from A-l , Silt L ke City, quite a jriite proporty tUii ti-vjuirtM by the state, eleven lioines uith-, uith-, ;y coils o( the complete tuiie ere not coii-j.l:ut coii-j.l:ut nd purchased, even y!i access to the homes aTj N" reduced by the 'iAuig ff o( certain local yje 0 the eleven home cers then requested that - y :ite buy 'heir property ( conteniling that their le-i;t le-i;t protected access rights tere sometimes block-4 block-4 entirely by trams on the n-ls that cross their re-a re-a iivess reads, had a'iected. TV Hi.hay Department jc:Vi requested an opinion j nutter from the Slate ,;.ny General's office, p Attemev General's opi- ion as that tule the home owners had a questionable basis in present law for their claims, because the railroad had no l,.R.a n(;M l0 l)l0(,k the access roads, their case had enough merit that it should be referred to the courts for a determination. Property Rights A representative of the Attorney At-torney General's office at the Road Commission meeting amplified upon the written opinion by pointing out that present land condemnation laws are based upon "property "pro-perty rights." not "human rights" --- such as inconvenient incon-venient access, reduced property pro-perty values, noise and visual vi-sual pollution, and aesthetic values --- aiutthat this situation situa-tion had created a growing list of private citizens severely disgruntled over highway construction that had taken their property, or routed rou-ted highways near their pro- perty. After a lengthy discussion, with several Moab citizens offering comments, the Road Commission voted to waive its immunity and thus permit per-mit the home owners to instigate in-stigate a "friendly" suit to determine what their rights may actually be in the light of changing governmental policies po-licies in such matters. If the courts decide in favor of the home owners, this will establish a precedent for the consideration of "human rights" in other property condemnation con-demnation cases, and may thus offer hope of legal relief for many Utah citizens who have had their property values and living quality reduced re-duced by highway construction. construc-tion. It is certain that such a legal precedent will be seized upon by both private citizens and environmental groups as a means of gaining gain-ing consideration of human values previously neglected to a large extent during highway high-way planning. On the other hand, if the State Highway Department wins this "friendly" legal battle, bat-tle, it will then have added materially tothearmyof citizens citi-zens that have already been upset by certain Highway Department De-partment actions. Either way the coming legal contest will be a major milestone in the unresolved problem of human rights and aesthetic values versus highways and otht'r public construction. S. E. Utah Problems The balance of the 3 12 hour meeting was devoted to the discussion of business not on the prepared agenda, most of it concerned with southeastern Utah highway problems. Moab and Grand County . officials stated that completion comple-tion of the surfacing of Utah 128, from U.S. 1G3 to Cisco, was the number one priority for Grand County. Highway Department officials at the meeting explained that the $425,000 per year presently being spent to extend the armor coating east from the Castle Valley junction was a legal maximum without legislative legis-lative allotment of funds and the awarding of bid contracts. Local citizens at the meeting meet-ing pointed out that at this rate, considering the estimated esti-mated $160,000 needed Jo complete the job to secondary standards, and leaving the uewey bridge to continue to carry traffic across the Colo, the job would take until 1979 to complete. Both Grand and San Juan County Commissioners Commis-sioners felt this would be too slow. Mr. Calvin Black, San Juan County Commissioner who is running for election as representative in the state legislature, indicated that if he is elected, he will promote pro-mote early completion of Utah 128, to at least secondary standards. Scenic Highway In the meantime, U 128 is also a part of the proposed pro-posed Lake Powell Scenic Highway, and if this is approved ap-proved and funded, U 128 will probably be improved to primary highway standards and the Dewey Dridge replaced re-placed with a wider span. Several at the meeting expressed ex-pressed a wish to see the scenic and historic Dewey Bridge remain standing as a tourist attraction, even though traffic is routed over a new bridge. The extension of U128 up-river up-river into Colorado was discussed. dis-cussed. An engineering study has shown this to be feasible and a report will be presented pre-sented to the state legislature legisla-ture for its consideration. Highway Department officials offi-cials announced that the proposal pro-posal to extend U.S. 163 north to Vernal and renumber existing roads on to Yellowstone Yellow-stone Park have been shelved for at least two years because the idea had been turned down for unknown reasons by the American Association of State Highway officials. Obtaining Interstate status for U.S. 50,: an idea previously pre-viously turned down by federal fede-ral highway officials, was given new hope. A transcontinental trans-continental "Eisenhower Highway," from Washington, D C. to San Francisco, has been authorized, and one logical logi-cal route for this memorial highway would be via 1-70 into Utah from the east, then via U.S. 50 from Green River on north and west through Utah and Nevada. New Signing Grand County and Moab City officials thanked the Road Commission for the new brown-on-white highway sign at Crescent Junction pointing out the National Parks in this area. A following discussion dis-cussion indicated a need for further such "recreation site" highway signs, both locally lo-cally and at key points elsewhere else-where in the state. The remaining part of the meeting was taken up with sometimes heated discussions discus-sions of two local problems-traffic problems-traffic control and safety both north and south of Moab on U.S. 163, and the current state program of highway sign removal re-moval that is required by federal law if federal highway high-way funds are to continue to be available. On this latter problem, representatives re-presentatives of the Highway Department and the Attorney General's office explained the nature of the basic law, clarified clari-fied certain points brought up by local businessmen and pointed out that the present inequities caused between established es-tablished businesses which have highway signs, and new businesses which cannot put up such signs, is a temporary problem at most. Group Study After considerable discussion, discus-sion, in which several local citizens and officials contended con-tended that Highway Department Depart-ment traffic surveys of Moab traffic problems had overlooked over-looked several critical factors, fac-tors, the Road Commission instructed Highway Department Depart-ment officials to establish a group study of the problem. The group will consist of Highway Department engineers, engi-neers, Highway Patrol officers, offi-cers, Moab and Grand County officials, and several local concerned citizens, among these at least one of theseve-' theseve-' ral women who spearheaded the discussion at the meeting. Thus, for the first time, Moab's growing problems with U.S. 163 traffic will be given a thorough study, with input from well-informed local lo-cal citizens being given serious seri-ous consideration. Hopefully, from this will come a system of turn and passing lanes, |
