- Wasatch Choice Vision: 2023-2050 Regional Transportation Plan
- Map of the Month: Regional Transportation Plan Projects Map
- Be Heard: Take the New Guiding Our Growth Survey
- WFRC Named Bike Friendly Business by the League of American Bicyclists
- Regional Active Transportation Count Program
- Hundreds Participate in Golden Spoke 2023 Ride
- Government Affairs Update
- On the Horizon
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Wasatch Choice Vision: 2023-2050 Regional Transportation Plan | |
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The Wasatch Front Regional Council (WFRC) yesterday unanimously adopted the Wasatch Front 2023-2050 Regional Transportation Plan (2023-2050 RTP) - the official place where tomorrow’s new roads, transit lines, and trails start. The 2023-2050 RTP will strengthen our transportation network, providing more choices to get around while reducing traffic congestion along the Wasatch Front. It is part of the Wasatch Choice Vision, a broad strategy to maintain our high quality of life by coordinating plans for new homes and jobs with transportation.
The 2023-2050 RTP’s transportation improvements, coupled with the Wasatch Choice Vision centers and future local land use development, are anticipated to have substantial benefits, including:
- 31% more jobs reachable to the average household by driving;
- 71% more jobs reachable to the average household by public transit; and
- 43% more people with nearby access to a bikeway.
The 2023-2050 Regional Transportation Plan is part of the Wasatch Choice Vision, our communities’ shared vision for coordinated transportation investments, development patterns, and economic opportunities. The Vision inter-relates transportation projects with the planned-for location of homes, jobs, and town centers to achieve better outcomes for communities and the Region as a whole.
WFRC’s 2023-2050 RTP is a culmination of four years of collaboration between local leaders, transportation agencies, community organizations, local stakeholders, and residents. Specifically, over the next three decades the 2023-2050 RTP identifies nearly $26 billion of priority roadway, transit, and bike and pedestrian projects – over 1,000 projects across the region. That translates into a more balanced, multimodal transportation system that provides Utahns with more choices to reach their destination.
The RTP reflects all phases of the Little Cottonwood Canyon Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), including the Phase 1 enhanced bus, tolling, mobility hub, and bus stops that was recently funded with $150M from the state. In adopting the RTP, WFRC supported prioritizing of Phase 1 and 2, and the implementation and evaluation of Phase 1 and 2, before advancing to Phase 3 of the EIS.
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Map of the Month: Regional Transportation Plan Projects Map
The Council's adoption of the 2023-2050 Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) yesterday is a once-every-four-years event. So it should be no surprise that May's Map of the Month is the Adopted 2023-2050 RTP Projects Map.
The new RTP Projects map uses a similar user interface – with basic and advanced project filtering controls – to earlier versions of the draft RTP map. You can explore the RTP projects by mode or by phase, or use the advanced filtering capabilities to look at specific project types, cost ranges, ownership, and right-of-way needs.
Don't forget to update your bookmarks and other links to the current RTP map.
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Be Heard: Take the New Guiding Our Growth Survey
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Interested in the impacts of population growth in Utah? Want to make sure your voice is part of the conversation about your community and Utah’s future? Take the new Guiding Our Growth survey at guidingourgrowth.utah.gov.
Preserving Utah’s unique quality of life requires carefully weighing the impacts of potential decisions about housing, open space, water, transportation, and more. This new survey leads participants through zip-code-specific options for dealing with growth challenges. The challenges aren’t easy, but the best solutions require collaboration and facing the toughest decisions head-on.
Utah leaders statewide are listening and invite the public to share their opinions about how to guide Utah’s growth. The survey will extend through the end of August. Results will direct the “big ideas” required in the near future to ensure the best Utah possible for generations to come.
Take the time to be heard.
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WFRC Named Bike Friendly Business by the League of American Bicyclists, Again!
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This month, the League of American Bicyclists recognized WFRC for the second time with a Silver Bicycle Friendly Business (BFB) award, earning it a place alongside more than 1,500 organizations across the country contributing to the movement to build a more Bicycle Friendly America.
WFRC joins BFBs nationwide, including other government agencies, Fortune 500 companies, bike shops, and other employers, all united in a commitment to transform American workplaces to be more welcoming to both customers and employees who bike. The Bicycle Friendly Business award recognizes an organization’s contributions in shifting up and accelerating the movement to build a Bicycle Friendly America for everyone.
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Transportation agencies across the Wasatch Front including the Utah Department of Transportation, Wasatch Front Regional Council, Mountainland Association of Governments and the Utah Transit Authority are working together to set-up a program to count users on the walking, biking or scooting transportation network. Counting methods may include permanent counters, temporary counters, or face-to-face methods. The goal of the program is to establish a plan for where, when, and how to count active transportation users, and create a pilot for a public facing database for easy data extraction. Upon completion of this work we would like to try and roll the program out statewide.
Please help us by taking a quick survey letting us know:
- If you or your agency has a count program already and how you use it
- If you or your agency has access to active transportation data through a third party vendor
- How you or your agency would use robust count data if it were available
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Hundreds Participate in Golden Spoke 2023 Ride
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On Saturday, May 13, nearly 300 people celebrated the Golden Spoke Network of Trails by riding portions of the trail system that stretches over 100 miles from Ogden to Provo. This year’s ride, the sixth such event, focused on highlighting the Denver & Rio Grande Western Rail (D&RGW) Trail, which is in its 20th year and runs through Davis and portions of Weber County.
People were able to sign up for three different Golden Spoke ride options, with all three ending at Farmington Regional Park adjacent to the D&RGW Trail: (1) a 75-mile ride beginning in Provo; (2) an 18-mile ride beginning in Roy; and (3) a 2-mile family ride beginning in Farmington. Kick-off locations were sponsored by Ogden City and BikeWalk Provo and the 75-mile ride featured aid stations sponsored by Lehi City and the City of North Salt Lake while festivities in Farmington were sponsored by Davis County and Farmington City.
Those that braved the high winds and intermittent rain in order to arrive at the final destination were greeted with a balloon arch, rock climbing wall, a Bike Utah sponsored bike rodeo, tacos, and a big cheer! Folks were able to return to their starting locations via FrontRunner thanks to UTA provided transit passes.
Special thanks to Golden Spoke ride organizers including Davis County, Farmington City, the Jordan River Commission, MAG, Move Utah, and UTA. If you weren’t able to join us this year, please save the date for May of 2024 to celebrate the Golden Spoke!
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State & Local: Legislative Interim + Unified Economic Opportunity Commission
The Utah Legislature met for the first time last week since the 2023 General Session for interim committee meetings and a time-sensitive special session to address the expiring state of emergency for flooding. WFRC focused on the Transportation Interim Committee, where the committee received an update of state-funded and non-state-funded transit projects (including the strategic doubletracking of FrontRunner and Point of the Mountain Transit), information regarding Housing and Transit Reinvestment Zones, Station Area Planning, transit oriented development, and parking around transit. The Legislature will continue to meet monthly in interim until November (except July) to receive reports, study issues, and craft legislation for the 2024 General Session.
The Unified Economic Opportunity Commission’s (UEOC) Growth and Transportation (G&T) working group kicked off their work earlier this month and will meet through the Summer with the intent that actionable policy items out of this group will be made available to the UEOC to be included in the Governor’s budget and presented to interim committees. The G&T group is divided further into three individual subgroups, including Transit and Transportation Innovation and Investment, Growth and Infrastructure Innovation and Investment, and Growth Policy Alignment. WFRC Executive Director Andrew Gruber serves on the G&T group, as does WFRC Chair South Jordan Mayor Dawn Ramsey, along with representatives from cities, counties, and other public and private sector stakeholders.
Federal: Grant Opportunities Available
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Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) community grants are intended to fill gaps in access to electric vehicle (EV) charging by providing funding for EV charging infrastructure in your communities. Eligible projects include acquisition and installation of EV charging infrastructure located on any public road or publicly accessible locations (parking facilities, public buildings, public schools, parks, etc.) Here you can find the Notice of Funding Opportunity, and webinar for further information. The application deadline was extended from May 30th, and is now due no later than June 13th, 2023.
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