Cedar City » Earth movers, steamrollers, graders and ubiquitous orange barrels will sprout along one of America's most scenic highways once a proposed project for State Route 12 in southern Utah starts rolling.

Planned improvements for a 2-mile piece of the 26-mile national scenic byway between Escalante and Boulder in Garfield County will widen and straighten sections of the road and add turnouts, although some feel the changes are unnecessary and could ruin the bucolic character of the winding, two-lane highway.

Liz Thomas, a lawyer with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said the group has voiced concerns about the draft environmental assessment for the

project, first proposed in 2005. She said changes the Utah Department of Transportation wants to make to improve safety could have the opposite effect because drivers might go faster.

"The environmental assessment talks about safety and the need to make the road wider and straighter, but their own figures say there are already fewer accidents than you'd expect on a rural Utah highway," Thomas said.

She worries the project would detract from the scenic beauty of the road, which rises from the redrock country around Bryce Canyon National Park to high alpine settings on Boulder Mountain, where panoramic views include landmarks like the Kaiparowits Plateau and Navajo Mountain.

"Some areas don't need a super highway through them," Thomas said. "This is one of those places. It's one in a million."

Now that the public comment period on the project has expired, the next step in the process is a request by the Federal Highway Administration to get a 200-foot right of way from the Bureau of Land Management. The section of road to be improved is on the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, which is administered by the BLM.

Thomas also is concerned that if UDOT gets the right of way, it could mean bigger projects in the future.

Monte Aldridge, the pre-construction engineer on the project for UDOT, said preserving the scenic nature of the highway will be a priority, even as the agency tries to meet the needs of area residents and tourists.

"We've tried to be sensitive to comments from the community to maintain the character of the road," Aldridge said.

He said the project will include turnouts, widening and improvements where the road is being undermined by erosion. A bridge at Calf Creek also will be replaced and shoulders will make the highway safer for bicyclists.

Any concrete barriers that are erected will be covered with materials designed to resemble the area's Navajo sandstone.

Aldridge said motorists are not likely to drive faster after the improvements because the winding nature of the road won't allow it. He said once the right of way is secured, the project will be placed in the pool of other proposed road projects waiting for funding.

The cost of the improvements hasn't been determined because the design work is not finished. But construction could take up to a decade to complete.

Andrea Clayton of H.W. Lochner, the consultant hired by UDOT to prepare the environmental assessment, said the formal request for the right of way will probably be submitted to the BLM by year's end.

She said comments from the public and a citizens panel appointed to give feedback on the project were considered in the environmental document. Some elements of the initial proposal were scaled back or eliminated, including a possible parking area for a trail system because it was out of character with the road's scenic nature.

Jim Catlin, a member of the citizens group that met with UDOT, said state officials and consultants encouraged feedback and took it seriously.

"They really wanted to listen to the people," said Catlin, who is also the project coordinator for the environmental group Wild Utah Project. "They were willing to change the project and compromise."

Boulder resident Larry Davis said he understands the need for improvements, especially with growing motorcycle and motor home traffic.

"There are problems with people stopping to look at things, so more turnouts could be a good thing," said Davis, retired manager of Anasazi Indian Village State Park in Boulder. "I don't know if I want to see a wholesale redoing of the highway, but there are places that can be improved."

mhavnes@sltrib.com