The contractors, all low-bidders, are A&W Highway Constructors, Ames Construction and Clyde-Geneva Constructors. Each company will handle one of Legacy's three segments between the juncture of Interstates 15 and 215 in northern Salt Lake County and Parrish Lane-U.S. 89 in Farmington.

When the 14-mile, $685 million highway opens in fall 2008 - the same time commuter rail service is scheduled to start between Ogden and Salt Lake City - transportation in northern Utah will be transformed, said UDOT spokesman Nile Easton.

So will understanding of highway aesthetics, due to UDOT's decision to design a parkway specific to Utah geography, geology and the Great Salt Lake, one of the world's most important bird habitats.

The intense planning started almost immediately after the Legislature in November 2005 ratified a legal settlement between environmental and citizen groups that successfully sued to halt construction.

The design work crammed three years of work into 10 months and included 500 participants including engineers, designers, architects, artists, landscape designers, consultants and community residents, said John Thomas, UDOT's Legacy project director.

The parkway will include pedestrian, bike and horse trails, interpretive centers, art, desert landscape design, unusual bridges and rubberized asphalt to minimize noise. Contractors had to consider 7,000 sheets of engineering schematics to develop their bids, Thomas said. Despite the level of detail, the bidders came in less than one percent higher than UDOT's own engineers' estimates - and within the budget.