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Show Public hearing to discuss U. S. 89 traffic control By GARY R. BLODGETT FARMINGTON Studies of traffic control on U.S. Highway High-way 89 between Ogden and Farmington will be discussed at a public meeting Thursday at 9:30 a.m. in the Farmington City Hall conference room. The meeting will be geared to finding a way to reduce truck and tourist traffic on Highway 89. The 10-mile stretch of divided highway is also extensively used for commuter traffic for Hill Air Force Base employees and through traffic between Ogden and Salt Lake City. Central Davis County residents maintain the key traffic problem prob-lem arises from the use of trucks and tourists entering the highway (U.S. 89) at the mouth of Weber Canyon after exiting Interstate Highway 84 from the east. In an earlier meeting, residents told a highway construction study team that there is no way for trucks to travel south from 1-84 except to exit at the mouth of Weber Canyon and travel south on Highway 89 until the highway intersects with 1-15 at Farmington Junction. Westbound traffic on 1-84 is basically forced to exit at the mouth of the canyon and travel Highway 89 unless they were to continue several miles "out of their way" on 1-84 until 1-84 connects with 1-15 west of Riverdale. "This dumps all of the large trucks and tourist traffic onto Highway 89 along a 10-mile stretch through several heavily populated communities on a highway which is already heavily traveled by local and commuter traffic," the residents explained. ex-plained. Elizabeth Vincent, a transportation planning engineer with the firm making the independent study of Highway 89, said this highway is "designed for heavy, through traffic and that the commercial and residential properties along the highway were developed in recent years, after expansion and improvement of the highway." Residents have also complained that the traffic on Highway 89 has become extremely heavy and that recent traffic control studies have shown that the average speed on the highway is about five miles per hour above the 55-miles-per-hour speed limit with much of the traffic exceeding 65 miles-per-hour. Also, residents note that there are no traffic control lights along the 10-mile stretch of divided highway and that left turns are extremely dangerous. Local residents continually make left turns and attempt to cross the highway to attend schools and churches and to do shopping and visit friends and relatives. Three fatalities in separate accidents have resulted thus far this year. There have also been several serious-injury accidents on the heavily traveled highway, according to the Utah Highway High-way Patrol. I ; ; - A |
