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Richfield • The Utah Department of Transportation on Friday released a once-every-five-year update to the long-range plan for highways and transit in the state's rural areas through 2040.

It includes such things as adding many more passing lanes on rural highways, including U.S. 40 in the Uinta Basin, U.S. 191 in Grand and San Juan counties, U.S. 89 in Sardine Canyon and on rural areas of Interstate 15.

It also includes numerous improvements in Tooele County to State Road 36 and its interchange with I-15. The plan calls for a new I-15 interchange in the county to allow beginning construction on the long-sought new Midvalley Highway there.

UDOT develops such plans only for rural areas not covered by metropolitan planning agencies, such as the Wasatch Front Regional Council (which covers areas including Salt Lake, Davis and Weber counties) and the Mountainland Association of Governments (which covers Utah County).

Cory Pope, UDOT director of program development, notes that UDOT has an interactive map on its website that shows all planned projects. Clicking on them will bring up details about costs, when construction is envisioned and citizen comments received about them.

Some other highlights of the plan include:

• Upgrading Kimball Junction on I-15 near Park City.

• Adding lanes to S.R. 36 in Tooele County.

• Widening U.S. 40 from two lanes to three in sections of Summit County.

• Adding passing lanes or other additional lanes in many sections of U.S. 40 in the Uinta Basin, where traffic is complicated by a steady stream of trucks carrying crude oil to Wasatch Front refineries.

Jeff Harris, UDOT planning director, said the plan considers the needs of tourism, the energy sector, interstate-freight movement, access to recreation opportunities, and the need for enhanced connections between communities.

He said it employs sophisticated travel-demand-modeling software to anticipate future transportation needs, taking into account projected population growth as well as employment-data forecasts