| OCR Text |
Show .Basin road need survey "presented to UDOT It will cost $204 million by the year 100 to improve Uintah Basin roads to j indie the anticipated traffic caused by lergy development. jflThe sobering fact was given to the tan Transportation Commission riday by Jerry Blair of Wayne T. Van agoner and Associates Inc., a com-iny com-iny that prepared a report at the immission's direction, using a federal The $204 million is necessary to lprove roads and develop others in 1 ''e basin as oil shale and tar sands ili'ojects increase energy production 1,1 toth of Vernal. e' To cover the cost of those roads, the r Siport projects revenues of only $10 Eiillion by the 1996-2000 period, forcing nihate officials to find other sources of ufcvenue for the road work, ysi Jlair said the Uintah Basin is ,!)ducing 16 million barrels of oil hually, which will increase to 37 llion by the year 2000. ?rerhe peak year for development will , 1989, when 7,900 additional workers i expected in the area. That will irease the population of the region im 34,000 to 52,000. ... The development south of Vernal will lude: a tar sands project by Sohio, 2ji Moon Lake Power Plant, White . rer Dam, oil shale projects by Tosco, kinetics, White River Shale, raho and other unannounced ijects. i combination of employee traffic 1 increased use of large trucks to nsport the oil will put additional rden on Uintah Basin roads. The lort said that unless money is put 0 improving the roads, they will teriorate quickly. Jlair said one of the most important provements suggested by the study ates to U.S. 40, the major link bet-en bet-en the Uintah Basin, Salt Lake City 1 Colorado. ie said some sections of U.S. 40 have 5n widened to four lanes, but ad-ional ad-ional widening will be needed on Be rural sections from the Wasatch- . ichesne County line to 4.4 miles east 5 Vernal. Another major improvement suggested is an alternate access route into and through Vernal. Without improvement, im-provement, traffic on Vernal's main street will increase from 16,800 vehicles per day in 1979 to 37,700 by 2000. The report suggests construction of a bypass around Vernal, but an even better solution might be to improve other streets in the city to attract traffic off U.S. 40 before it reaches the central business district. Fifth South might be one of those streets. Major widening is also suggested for U-44 north of Vernal, a road which goes toward Flaming Gorge Reservoir, and a part of U-260 that leaves U-44 and goes over Flaming Gorge Dam toward the Utah-Wyoming border. The report said minor widening is needed for the part of U.S. 40 between 4.4 miles east of Vernal and the Utah-Colorado Utah-Colorado line; U-33 between Duchesne and Carbon County; U-208 that leaves U.S. 40 and goes north to Tabiona, Duchesne County; U-121 between Roosevelt and Neola and then east to Vernal, and U-88 that leaves U.S. 40 and goes south to Ouray. Reconstruction is suggested for a road between Ouray and Bonanza and a road south of Ouray. A new road is needed between Vernal and Bonanza to serve the energy development. ' Because air travel will increase in the energy search, the report said the Vernal airport should get a new terminal ter-minal building. The parallel taxiway should be lighted, and the parking areas should be rebuilt, the report said. The runway at the Roosevelt airport should be widened, while the Duchesne airport needs a runway widening, paving of a parallel runway, a new operations building and reconstrction of an access road from U-87. No improvements were suggested for the Manila and Dutch John airports. Because the cost of transportation needs exceeds the projected revenues by a large margin, the report suggests that the energy-development companies com-panies pay their share. Serverance taxes and mineral leases are ways the state can raise money for the roads. |
