When it means more concrete and pollution, Utah gives us what we want, George Pyle writes

The Utah Department of Transportation isn’t looking at widening I-15 — again — for the amusement of its engineers. Or because it would be fun to spend $1.6 billion on the larger ribbon of pavement through Salt Lake and Davis counties.

The idea behind the plan to make I-15 wider between 400 South in Salt Lake City and Farmington seems no more complicated than giving the people what they want. The desire we see in all those vehicles now jamming the highway is projected to become so heavy that a stretch of highway that now takes something like 18 minutes to traverse will take 50 minutes by the year 2050.

That wouldn’t just be annoying for those stuck in that traffic. It would mean more vehicles moving, slowly, through the most densely populated part of the state, burning more gasoline and spewing more exhaust while making less progress.

But why is it that, when the public desire seems to be for paving over miles of dirt and wetlands and bulldozing more than a few homes and businesses in a part of town that’s already under-appreciated, that’s when state leaders are eager to give us what we want?

Because we’ve always done it that way? Because businesses that sell concrete and bulldozers are better connected to members of the Legislature?

What about when the people of Utah said they wanted to expand Medicaid for low-income households? When we wanted a means of drawing congressional and legislative districts that didn’t give more power to the already powerful? When we wanted access to medical marijuana?

Voters had to wait years for the Medicaid expansion they voted for, even as a referendum supporting medical cannabis was mashed beyond recognition. And fair apportionment in Utah has always been a dead letter.

We made it clear we didn’t want public funds going to pay for private schools, overwhelmingly voting the idea down in 2007. But word is that members of the Utah Legislature are going to float it again, holding proposed pay boosts for teachers hostage until they get it.

How about letting the free market decide how many liquor stores and bars Utahns would patronize? Or allowing the good people of Utah to buy lottery tickets, if that’s what they want?

Utah takes pride in being a very business-friendly state. But we have established that there are things we won’t do for money. It’s not just the state control of alcohol or its decision not to run a lottery like 45 other states. It’s also our lack of legal casinos, bordellos and opium dens — decisions we don’t leave to the marketplace.

So, rather than just roll over and spend a billion and a half bucks because a lot of drivers want more space on the highway, how about we stop and think whether that is really what they want? Or need?

The major part of this be-careful-what-you-wish-for calculation is that making a road wider doesn’t really help the traffic flow better. At least, not for very long. A principle called “induced demand” holds that if you make a road easier to drive on, more people will soon choose to drive on it, and it won’t take long before you are back at the same state of snarl that moved you to start pouring all that concrete to begin with.

On I-15, particularly, a wider highway is certain to fill up, probably well before the 2050 date when today’s planners say the existing roadway slows to a crawl.

Then what? Widen it again? Where? Eventually we will come to the point where Salt Lake County is nothing but pavement.

If we are going to induce demand for something, how about we create a situation where more people want to ride mass transit, especially TRAX light rail and the FrontRunner commuter trains? Or the less-costly dedicated lane bus rapid transit idea? We could spend that $1.6 billion more efficiently, making it possible for public transit to more effectively handle more riders.

Rather than make I-15 wider through the gut of Salt Lake County, it would actually make more sense to tear it down between, say, 2100 South and 400 South. Replace it with a more attractive, and slower moving, boulevard with high-frequency public transit built in.

Removing that barrier would ease the physical, economic and social divisions between Salt Lake City’s east and west sides and reduce the amount of pollution that settles in the Rose Park and Glendale neighborhoods. It is a path to the future that has been embraced, to great benefit, in cities from San Francisco to Seoul to Madrid.

It’s been about a hundred years that we have built our cities for cars. It’s time to start building them for people.

George Pyle, opinion editor of The Salt Lake Tribune, gives a tip of the flat cap to the social media posts by the local Sweet Streets group and others who help lead his thinking about a less car-centric urbanism.

gpyle@sltrib.com

Twitter, @debatestate