"We're not dead yet": SLC scrambles to salvage local street authority after late changes to SB195. 

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• Benjamin Wood
• Participants in the Mayors Bike to Work ride pass a driver on 300 East on Wednesday, March 5.

SUGAR HOUSE—Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall defended her administration's work to improve street and traffic safety on Wednesday, saying that recent projects have improved conditions for drivers while also saving lives and enhancing quality of life for residents.

Speaking to roughly 50 cyclists at Fairmont Park at the start of her seasonal Bike to Work event, Mendenhall noted recent projects that have reconfigured public spaces to expand the amount of greenery in the city, to add and enhance crosswalks and to create new off-street paths and connections for cyclists, pedestrians and transit riders.

"It’s a nicer place to live, too, instead of feeling like you live next to a 5-lane highway," Mendenhall said.

Mendenhall said she had just gotten off the phone with the Utah House Speaker, working to resolve a bill that, in its current form, would effectively block Salt Lake City—and only Salt Lake City—from initiating any street improvement work until securing the express approval of the Utah Department of Transportation, including on small, local streets.

City representatives had worked with the bill's sponsors—Lehi Republican Rep. Kay Christofferson and Taylorsville Republican Sen. Wayne Harper—on a substitute version of SB195 that would have allowed some street improvement work to continue. But late Tuesday evening, Christofferson added a new amendment to SB195 on the House floor, stripping away the compromise provisions and re-instituting a strict ban on street safety efforts.

The bill was one procedural step way from final passage as of Wednesday morning, needing only a concurring vote in the Senate—which already voted 19-6 for a similar punitive version of SB195—to clear the Legislature outright. But the bill was "circled"—or paused—by Harper and spent all of Wednesday in limbo, before the Senate ultimately refused to concede with the House changes, setting up a final round of cross-chamber negotiations, likely on Thursday.

"We’re not dead yet," Mendenhall said. "I just want to make sure that we have future projects."

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• Benjamin Wood
• Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall welcomes riders to a Bike to Work event at Fairmont Park on Wednesday, March 5.

City and regional transportation stakeholders were set to meet at the Capitol on Wednesday morning, according to a person familiar with the deliberations who was not authorized to speak on the record. This person also did not know whether the bill's sponsors had agreed to be present at that meeting, or whether it was only to coordinate strategy among stakeholders.

In a prepared statement Wednesday morning, Harper confirmed that discussion are taking place on potential adjustments to SB195.

“I’m continuing to have discussions with all stakeholders to find the best policy.” Harper said.

As a matter of public record, most of the typical entities involved in those discussions have declined to comment on the latest changes to SB195. Representatives for the Wasatch Front Regional Council, UDOT, the Utah Transit Authority and the Salt Lake Chamber did not respond to City Weekly's inquiries, though Chamber spokeswoman Marisa Bomis did clarify that the floor amendments did not come at the Chamber's request or involvement.

Legislative leaders have defended the bill by saying that study and coordination is needed to plan for the transportation impacts of major redevelopment projects downtown, like the planned reconfiguration of the Salt Palace and Delta Center into a pedestrian-oriented sports, entertainment and convention center district. But SB195—in all of its iterations—has gone far beyond the downtown core, imposing new requirements on the city administration and inserting new levels of state-based bureaucratic oversight into the minutiae of the local street grid, from the setting of speed limits to the painting of new crosswalks in front of schools.

The bill has also been supported by a vocal group of Salt Lake City residents who are accustomed to driving as their primary mode of transportation, and who object to changes to the built environment that enhance the safety, comfort and convenience of those outside a private vehicle. This group has largely supported the bill from behind the scenes, though Janet Hemming, former chairwoman of the Yalecrest Community Council, made a point to testify in support of SB195 during its hearing at the House Transportation Committee.

"You are the only thing standing between my neighborhood and a terrible project that will place speed bumps on our quiet roads," Hemming told the committee, which does not include any members who represent Salt Lake City. "These bumps will cause traffic congestion and harmful emissions."

Two major street projects, already approved by UDOT and scheduled to break ground this year, would be directly halted by SB195: a two-way bikeway on 300 West, linking the recently-built 300 West cycle track to buffered cycling lanes on 300 South; and a protected multi-use path over the 400 South viaduct, creating a new east-west connection to the west side, where few safe pedestrian and cycling routes exist for accessing east-side services and amenities.

Christofferson confirmed on Wednesday that both projects would be blocked from proceeding under the terms of his amendment to SB195. He declined to elaborate on his motivations for rejecting the bill's prior compromise language.

"If the contract has not been awarded, the project cannot proceed," he said. "The intention of the bill is to provide a plan and evaluate that plan in relation to the proposed project's effect on mobility with surrounding highways before advancing the project."

Jon Larsen, transportation director for Salt Lake City, declined to comment on the latest deliberations around SB195. But he touched on the bill while presenting the riding route to participants in the mayor's Wednesday bike ride, adding that he and other transportation officials had felt the support of the community.

"One of the best protests is to just keep riding," Larsen said.