This month, progress came in the form of construction workers laying utilities in advance of widening this major east-west connector with two more lanes for cars and two down the center separated from traffic for the state's first exclusive rapid bus line. There's no doubt the traffic was nasty and a valley with broad north-south arteries needed more flowing crossways, store owner Bill Pester said.

"This is a busy stretch," he said, resigned to the year and a half of disruption that starts in May. "I'm not one that's against progress. This probably will help the traffic situation."

At his store, though, the cash register is 50 percent quieter this month and the widened road will swallow up three parking stalls and leave motorists in the other five to take their chances backing into traffic. The Utah Department of Transportation will pay him, but he's not sure how much.

Never an easy left-hand turn, 3500 South is about to become a virtually impenetrable thoroughfare, with three lanes in each direction, plus the bus lanes. The construction zone stretches from Decker Lake Drive (2150 West) to Bangerter Highway (3800 West).

"I'd almost like to move, but I'm not sure we could afford it," Pester said. And then there are all the customers over the years who wouldn't know where to find him if he left his cubby between the 7-Eleven and the West Valley Suzuki car lot.

While Pester and a half-dozen "We've moved" signs sigh at the changes, many to the west are smiling broadly. Their commute eastward into Salt Lake City or to the valley's growing light-rail network is about to get breezier.

West Valley resident Sharon Gates shops and runs errands along 3500 South, generally taking about 15 minutes to roll from 2700 West to 5400 West. During the morning and evening rush the drive takes twice that long, and traveling east, things back up as people queue for the turn lanes onto Bangerter Highway.

"People have a hard time merging in Utah," she said wryly.

Even for those who aren't leaving the city daily, 3500 South is an obvious candidate for expansion, Gates said. It has a Shopko, a Wal-Mart, and access to city offices. Add to that a colorful collage of quickie services and strip malls, taquerias, check-cashing stores, pawns and oil changers.

"Everything is off 35th South," Gates said.

West Valley City Mayor Dennis Nordfelt thinks so too, and believes the rapid bus line is a coup that commuters will like more than they realize. No longer constrained by the regular flow of traffic, buses can whisk to the Millcreek TRAX rail station, and eventually to a new West Valley TRAX spoke.

"Wherever I go in the city, one of the perennial things people want to talk about is traffic congestion on the east-west streets," Nordfelt said.

In a 2005 study, UDOT graded traffic through two of the stretch's intersections at D and one - 2700 West - at E. Those grades indicated slowed traffic slightly better than an F, which would indicate constant stopping.

The widened road, the bus line, the coming rail connection - even the planned north-south Mountain View freeway that will siphon off those drivers headed out of the Salt Lake Valley - all portend an easier traverse across the valley, Nordfelt said.

"All of this is coming together at the same time, and one will complement the other," he said.

The rapid bus service should be running by late spring, with detours around UDOT's construction, spokeswoman Carrie Bohnsack-Ware said. The buses are expected to approximate the TRAX on-time rate of 90 percent over the 40-minute route.

Magna, the formerly sleepy mining town at the base of the Oquirrh Mountains, has grown from 10,000 to 25,000 in the past decade and needs more options, Magna Chamber of Commerce President Chick Paris said. A wider 3500 South makes shopping easier.

University of Utah employee Darin Blanchard avoids 3500 South on the daily commute from his West Valley home. His wife, Rikki, said she'll sometimes drive on it to go shopping, but she picks her hours carefully.

"If it's around [peak] traffic hours, it's ridiculous," she said.

To reach work, her husband weaves past the cul-de-sacs in their newer subdivision just northwest of the road expansion zone to 3100 South, a two-lane road that gets him to the northbound Bangerter, from which he merges onto the eastbound 201.

It's the sort of traffic dodging that a lot of west-side Salt Lake County residents have perfected over the years.