Gov. Cox Says Utahns Displaced by I-15 Freeway Expansion Will be "Very Well Compensated" 

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• Trent Nelson/Pool Photo
• Utah Gov. Spencer Cox speaks to reporters at PBS Utah on Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022.

UNIVERSITY—Utah Gov. Spencer Cox started his monthly PBS Utah press conference on Thursday with a cheerful greeting of "Happy Holidays, Happy Snowydays," and a rundown of the recent string of winter storms along the Wasatch Front.

The state's mountain snowpack—which supplies virtually all of Utah's drinking water—is at 150% of its average, Cox said, an encouraging sign but still far short of reversing a beyond-worrying trend of aridification in the region. He reiterated his encouragement that Utahns pray for precipitation, adding "we need all the help we can get."

"While we’re excited and grateful, we still have a long ways to go to have enough snowpack to fill our reservoirs and pull us out of this drought ," he said.

Cox then pivoted to the storms' impact on driving conditions, detailing the combined 16,000 employee hours of snowplow drivers and 222,000 miles of cleared road accomplished as of Wednesday. There were also 643 vehicle collisions in the same period, he said, and 1,682 citations issued for unsafe driving.

"We’re begging you to please slow down," Cox said. "Just because you have a big truck or a big SUV, they slide and crash harder than smaller cars."

But while Cox is urging drivers to slow down this winter, the state is broadly looking to speed them up. Following the upgrading of Highway 89 to a freeway-style corridor—where one of the above-mentioned crashes involved a woman left impaled and nearly cut in half by a guardrail—the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) is turning its attention to the widening of Interstate 15 through south Davis County and north Salt Lake County. The project is estimated to cost $1.6 billion, already approved and funded in generalities by the Legislature.

While UDOT has not set a formal route for the project, early conceptual materials released to the public this month suggested an imposing superhighway—with reversible lanes and roughly a football-field wide at key points— cutting through large swaths of west side neighborhoods and private residences.

Cox said that there are laws in place to protect homeowners in the path of construction. He said the routes would be determined carefully to minimize the use of eminent domain, but added that in circumstances there may be no choice but to displace private homes and public spaces to fit more cars.

"We know that on the north end, there’s going to need to be some expansion," Cox said. "If we do have to move some of those families, they will be very well compensated for that. We try to avoid that at any cost.

Many of the neighborhoods impacted by the project are, not coincidentally, those home to traditionally low-income and diverse residents. Recent studies of the affordable housing crisis in and around Salt Lake City suggest that there are few-to-no remaining areas for displaced residents to move to.

City Mayor Erin Mendenhall on Thursday reiterated her opposition to the displacement of residents for the highway project. "I can't support the consumption of neighborhoods for the sake of a few minutes of improved commuting," she said in a prepared statement.

But Cox is also supportive of steps to reduce car-dependency in the state, most recently calling for the funding of one year of free transit in his budget proposal to lawmakers. The Utah Transit Authority and Salt Lake City partnered last year to offer free fares systemwide during the month of February, and ridership data and surveys indicate the experiment was successful at boosting ridership and decreasing car trips.

A full year of data, Cox said, would provide a better picture of the potential role of transit in reducing emissions and relieving congestion on Utah roads (the very issue that freeway widening is intended to address, despite a growing school of thought among urban planners that highway expansion achieves the opposite, worsening traffic conditions and deepening the far-reaching and adverse effects of autocentrism).

"We think its just a win-win-win all the way around," Cox said of eliminating transit fares. "We know we have enough money this coming year in the budget to fund that proposal. Whether or not the Legislature decides that’s something they want to move forward with, that remains to be seen."

Cox also touched on disagreement with lawmakers when asked about the prospect of legislation targeting health care for transgender individuals. Despite—and in some cases contrary to—the advice of mainstream medical associations, many conservative-led states have pursued wide-ranging bans against treatment and particularly around gender-affirming care for of trans youth.

Cox said there is currently a lot of "noise" around the science of transgender car, and that particularly as it relates to children, there is an appropriate conversation to be had about regulation.

"My plea is that we do it in a way that is not hateful, that is not harmful—if we are going to make these decision, that we come from a place of true love and concern and not from a place of hate and bigotry," Cox said. "I think for the most part, that’s where the legislators are. Sadly probably not all of them , but certainly most of them."

Click here to watch the full PBS Utah press conference.