OCR Text |
Show Jaek-Sfnw$' By Jack Wallis One week has passed and there are nearly four more months to go. This is the time frame for the reconstruction project along Vernal's Main Street. Hopefully, the first week is the most chaotic. After a while we hope the new way to travel into Vernal's business district becomes easier. When the busy Main Street traffic was finally shut off a week ago Monday, it was hard to believe Vernal was the same town. It was so quiet that it gave a feeling of being all alone and being left out of the action. Well, the action has been moved from Main to 1st South and 1st North. Anyone trying to get through the intersections at 5th West, Vernal Avenue and 5th East during the rush hours has had plenty of excitement. These six intersections in-tersections have been changed from their regular traffic flow and some have3-way stops. Some motorists come to a stop when they don't have to and others almost forget to stop where there has always been a thru street. The sudden drop in business in some of the stores along the Main Street is frightening. Some stores have not noticed much difference while others have almost been wiped out. Businesses depending on the tourist traffic seem to be the worst hit, especially those located on the north side of Main. With 1st South designated as the U.S. 40 detour route and 1st North the U-44 route the tourists have not been getting to the north side of town. It has been recommended that 1st North also be designated as a U.S. 40 detour route to give equal opportunity to the businesses on the north side of town. It also seems unfair to block off East Highway 40 from 5th South to 5th East when there will not be highway construction con-struction in this area. This detour is unnecessary, especially when it involves in-volves such a long distance and the detour is over such a poor surfaced road. The businesses in the 5th South to 5th East detour area seem to be some of the hardest hit by the by-pass. This same problem being experienced ex-perienced from 5th South to 5th East is being experienced between 10th West and 7th West. The businesses in these non-construction areas felt like they should not be included in the detour, or else they should be provided better accesses. Even though everyone has had plenty of warning about the Main Street project and have been told that it would probably affect the downtown business, the first week has had a traumatic effect on business activities. Also contributing to the downtown construction project blues is the tourist travel decrease caused by the rumors of gasoline shortages and high prices. Some out-of-state tourists are just not venturing out this year because of the scare. It is uncertain just what affect this will have on the local tourist business, but it could be significant. The increase of in-state visitors could make up for the loss of out-of-state visitors, we'll just have to wait and see. Another question that has repeatedly come up concerning the new Main Street detour route, is why haven't portable semaphore lights been installed in-stalled at the busy intersections adjacent ad-jacent to the intersections formerly controlled by semaphores? The answer to this was given Friday when we were told by the UDOT that a portable semaphore installation costs from $30,000 to $40,000. If nothing else, this will be the summer most of us will always remember and like to forget. It will be the summer of many adjustments in downtown activities. As one of the contractor's representatives said last week, "We have a mess now, but we haven't seen anything yet." If the size of the mess is indicative of the future convenience of our Main Street improvement project it will be well worth a summer of inconvenience. |