The roller coaster ride of planning to reduce congestion in Big Cottonwood Canyon (BCC) with UDOT has taken many twists and turns. In the past decade, we have had the Mountain Accord, the Central Wasatch Commission’s BCC-MAP, the BCC Environmental Study, and on Dec. 3, the BCC-Environmental Assessment.
Throughout all of these studies and while serving on the Big Cottonwood Community Council, I have been on each board, council or committee, contributing to each plan.
I am not alone; several million people visit the Cottonwood canyons each year. The plan describes mostly good, common-sense, low-cost, scalable transportation solutions that adjust to both busy and slower days. The leading solution of the plan is enhanced busing.
Buses are essentially gondolas on wheels — except they carry twice as many people per vehicle and leave no permanent scar on the landscape. Buses are not a Disneyland ride; they can be gritty and loud, just like skiing and boarding.
The plan was released on Dec. 3 with the short public comment period ending on Jan. 9 — the busiest time of the year. The public must study the Executive Summary, the Environmental Assessment, and over 50 appendices of technical reports. We need more time.
I know I will be shopping, attending concerts, dinners and gatherings, and traveling more than in any other month. UDOT, please extend the comment period to the end of February.
The first duty in preparing an EA is to study the impacts deeply enough to make the threshold decision: Are we confident that the cumulative effects will not be significant, or do we need more information to be discovered through the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)? The BCC-EA never ranks impacts, though it discusses mitigations to environmental effects throughout. If mitigations are needed, then impacts occur — the public needs more time.
Kirk Nichols, Salt Lake City
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