Utah Senate chicanery imposes a moratorium on Salt Lake City's street safety efforts. 

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• Benjamin Wood
• Participants in Salt Lake City's annual Bike Prom wait for a passing Blue Line train on September 7, 2024.

CAPITOL HILL—Salt Lake City's efforts to reduce traffic fatalities and promote walkability would come to a screeching halt in May, with the city losing its authority over local street design for at least a year, under the terms of an amendment that was snuck into an omnibus transportation bill on Thursday.

Sponsored by Taylorsville Republican Sen. Wayne Harper, the current language of SB195 would impose a moratorium on Salt Lake City—and only Salt Lake City—prohibiting any roadwork that has the potential to decrease vehicle traffic on any street, including lower speed limits, new crosswalks and stop signs, lane narrowing and reduction or "any other strategy that when implemented may increase congestion for motor vehicles or discourage motor vehicles."

The bill would also require the city to undergo additional rounds of traffic study, overseen by the Utah Department of Transportation, on any traffic reduction strategies implemented since 2015 or planned to be implemented before 2035.

Harper did not respond to requests for comment. And on Thursday, when his amendment was adopted by the Senate, he told his colleagues only that it required a traffic study "in Salt Lake County" with no mention of the city moratorium. Senate Democrats, initially unaware of the scope of the changes, first supported its passage but later moved to recast their votes as "no" on the bill, which did not affect its transfer to the House.

During a press conference with Senate leadership on Friday, chamber president Stuart Adams, R-Layton, appeared to misunderstand the particulars of the bill. He noted a proposal to tunnel 300 West—already a state highway outside the city's control—as part of redevelopment plans for the Delta Center and Salt Palace, and said a "pause" in the city's roadwork is appropriate as the state considers how best to move drivers and their cars through downtown.

"If we affect 3rd West, how does it affect other roads in the city?" Adams said. "And how do we do the Delta Center hockey stadium rebuild without looking at the road structure in downtown?"

When pressed on the bill's impact to local neighborhood streets, well beyond the scope of downtown revitalization efforts, Adams said the city is free to make street improvements—so long as those improvements encourage more driving and do not divert road space away from cars to other transportation modes, like walking, cycling and transit riding.

"The way I read it is, you can make any improvement you want, you simply can’t restrict additional traffic flow," Adams said. "So if you’re necking down traffic or reducing traffic flow, before you do it I think we need to take a look."

Salt Lake City has put considerable effort into improving its street network in recent years, re-configuring the capital's notoriously wide and deadly rights-of-way to construct separated cycling facilities (like the 9-Line Trail and 300 North cycle track), improved sidewalks and mid-block crossings (like the recent Life on State project by The Bayou and a project underway on 2100 South) and to facilitate transit connections (like the new bus-priority lanes on 200 South). The city is also working toward Vision Zero, or the total elimination of roadway deaths, though progress on that specific effort has been stalled for more than a year.

As recently as 2022, the city was averaging two deaths per month on its surface streets—not counting freeway collisions within city boundaries—but those rates have been in steady decline since then, a period of time that coincides with the default speed limit being reduced to 20 miles per hour, the banning of new drive-thrus in the Sugar House central business district and the implementation of so-called "road diets" and "traffic calming" projects that both improve safety while encouraging more efficient traffic flow.

City representatives were scheduled to meet with Harper to discuss the amendments on Friday afternoon, and a spokesperson for City Hall declined to comment ahead of those negotiations. But sources within city departments, who were not authorized to speak on the record, confirmed that any and all work to enhance street safety and efficiency would be blocked by SB195.

"Based on a strict interpretation of the bill, it would halt traffic calming, new crosswalks, new traffic signals—even stop signs," one staffer said.

Following that closed-door meeting, city representatives would say only that discussions are ongoing.

"We are currently working with the bill sponsor to try to address the broad implications of this provision,” said Andrew Wittenberg, spokesman for Mayor Erin Mendenhall.

Representatives of the Utah Department of Transportation and the Wasatch Front Regional Council also did not respond to requests for comment.

The timing of SB195 is notable, as Salt Lake City is preparing to take the first steps toward constructing a "Green Loop" linear park around downtown by repurposing redundant car lanes as new greenspace and active transportation corridors. The city is also working toward the full pedestrianization of Main Street in the downtown core, a plan that is broadly embraced by the business community, with notable holdouts opposed to the plan like Zions Bank.

Marisa Bomis, a spokeswoman for the Salt Lake Chamber, said the business community was not yet ready to take a position on SB195.

"We are actively monitoring the bill and the amendments as they make their way through the legislative process," Bomis said. "We have questions about the recently added 'moratorium' language and the impact that could have on important downtown projects such as Temple Square and the Sports/Entertainment District. We understand that discussions with Salt Lake City, UDOT and regional transportation planners are ongoing and believe the bill will likely see additional changes.

Sen. Jennifer Plumb, D-Salt Lake City, said all stakeholders should work together to better understand the impact of changes to the city's street grid.

"I do think there has to be thoughtfulness, and I do think the state has a role to weigh in on this, especially given the highway piece of it," she said.

Asked to clarify whether that meant she was open to a moratorium on street projects in the city, Plumb said those were not her words, but did not answer yes or no.

"I don’t think I said that. I said I’d like us to be mindful about what it actually does," Plumb said. "Please don’t say that’s what I said, because I did not say that."

Plumb's colleague Sen. Nate Blouin, D-Salt Lake City, was far more direct in his reaction to SB195, saying it's part of pattern of Republican lawmakers slipping controversial language into important legislation and working to erode local control and government transparency.

"Salt Lake City has made strides to address traffic safety and has big ideas to keep moving the needle to create a safer and more affordable community," Blouin said. "But the supermajority thinks they know better and can’t keep their hands off of our capital city."

SB195 will next be heard by the House Transportation Committee. An agenda for that body's Monday morning hearing did not include SB195, though that could change over the weekend at the chairman's discretion.