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Show Lack Of Cents And Sense To Lose Utah Dam Benefits Findlnga of tho survey of the proposed Cottonwood route to the Glen Canyon dam have been made public by the Utah State Road Commission. By tacking on everything but the kitchen sink the commission manages to make the Cottonwood route lookmere expensive than the', rival Kanab route. It Is only by manipulation of flghres that this Is achieved. Total expense of the "dump" road a road which must be built anyway is tftcked onto the" Cottonwood route. The dump road figures out at $2,100,000. While this "dump" road expense is tacked onto the Cottonwood routethe eight miles of narrow-guage paved road eastoKanab, to the. Johnson Junction is eliminated from the Kanab route figures ,but that will havo to be rebuilt Just as soon as the primary-road style roadway runs into it coming west from the dam. So by cutting from the Kanab route expenses which must sooner or later be met to make that route feasible, and by tacking on everything possible to make the Cottonwood route seem more expensive the road commis-'slon figure magicians come up with a $3,800,000 spread' between the two routes. As the man said, figures don't lie but statistics sure can. These are all statistics. A fair and equitable way of achieving the relative costs of the two routes would be to start at the, dam and see which would cost the least to reach the Bryce Junction Y' on high way 89 1 including that eight mile atrip between Johnson Junction and Kanab, and all necessary road-widening and bridge-strengthening .needed on highway 89 between Kanab and the Bryce "Y". Several things tho survey does d o however. Things which are important, and which must be kept in view at all times for any long range planning In Southern Utah. The survey once and for all lays to rest tho "Big Lie" of the Kanab-road proponents who claim the Cottonwood route not feasible. The survey proves It to be good road-bulldlng country. Another thing; actual surveyed distances prove that the Cottonwood road would save 40.03 miles of road between the dam and upstate Utah. The covering letter received with the findings f r om road : commission head; Burton Taylor, pitl-. fully points out that the Kanab road "Is all that, ft can now afford. This is indeed a sad Btato of affairs. These same people who cannot dig. up $3,800,000 to save 40 miles of road travel are the same ones who are planning on, laying out $10,000,000 to better two miles of freeway in Salt Lake City. Early In 1955 that dump road which is being used to pad tho Cottonwood route expenses was supposed to havo received A-l priority to receive the first Federal funds available in Utah for road building, This money was the first siphoned off to go onto the Kanab route. Now they are using the lack of that money as an argument against the building of the Cottonwood road. Now with hundreds of thousands of dollars already Bpent on the second best route to the dam, the commission's attitude Is "we're stuck with it wo can't afford better." |