Provo’s latest construction project is understandable but futile.
I say Provo’s latest, which implies the massive construction project is a recent undertaking, but this project has been underway for 18 months. The project, called the Provo-Orem Transportation Improvement Project (TRIP), has been in the works for over a decade (most of which has been planning) and its goal is to reduce the amount of traffic in what is arguably the fastest-growing city in Utah.
Every year, thousands of out-of-town students arrive for college at Brigham Young University and Utah Valley University, most of them with their own vehicles, and every year thousands of those students graduate and stay in the local area.
No one can deny that traffic in Provo is bad, no one disagrees that steps were eventually going to have to be made to avoid gridlocking the area, but the Provo-Orem TRIP is not the solution.
Simply put, the Provo portion of the Provo-Orem TRIP was not designed to cater to Provo’s needs. A single bus line running through University Parkway and University Avenue to the Towne Center Mall is never going to be able to combat thousands of out-of-state students driving their vehicles to college with a single bus line.
Andrea Whitaker, Provo