From Nov. 13 to Dec. 13, there is a public comment period open for the Big Cottonwood Canyon SR-190, Fort Union to Brighton UDOT proposal creating tolling and enhanced bus service to address wintertime traffic congestion. While concurrently conducting an environmental study to evaluate the impact of said proposal. 

“UDOT is asking for public input on the preliminary purpose and need of the project, observations or concerns associated with existing traffic conditions, and the community and natural environment resources that should be evaluated in the study,” the Study Overview reads. 

The environmental study will be prepared in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requiring that federal agencies assess the environmental impact of their proposed action. Big Cottonwood Canyon’s traffic mitigation proposal and environmental study comes just a year after Little Cottonwood Canyon’s synonymous project started facing lawsuits for the dramatic oversight in the environmental impacts spelled out in the study versus the community’s accountability of what the proposal could actually do to the landscape, surrounding environments and what the community actually wants.   

To begin traffic mitigation up Big Cottonwood Canyon, specifically during the peak winter months, the Utah Department of Transportation is proposing a five-pronged approach: creating a mobility hub, enhancing bus service, improving existing bus stops, building resort bus depot stops and introducing tolling. UDOT is conducting the environmental study to evaluate the impact of these proposed facets. 

The mobility hub will sit at the base of the gravel pit on Wasatch Boulevard. Eleven acres from the gravel pit will become a centralized lot and parking structure. 

“The study is looking at building a mobility hub which is a central location where riders can transfer from their personal vehicles to an enhanced bus service,” their Study Overview said. 

A large problem with the current situation is that people already have to drive out of their way most of the time to get to the park and rides, and when they do get there, they run the risk of there being no parking spots available. Or the bus ghosts them because it is full. These were the most common problems heard at the public comment meeting held in person at Butler Elementary School in Cottonwood Heights on Nov. 13. 

UDOT says their enhanced bus service would provide buses from the mobility hub every 5-10 minutes during peak winter months. While improving road conditions and existing mid-canyon bus stops for improved bus operations at Cardiff Fork, Spruces and Silver Fork trailheads. With hopes to better ADA accessibility at those stops. The resort bus stops proposed would be 5,000- to 7,000-square-foot enclosed waiting areas at Brighton and Solitude.

The tolling booths will be erected just before Solitude Entry 1 in order. According to officials with UDOT at the in-person public comment meeting, they recognize they do not want toll more public facing trailheads when “90% of eastbound traffic traveled to Solitude Entry 1 or above,” UDOT’s Study Overview material states. Not tolling the more general public for hiking or other recreation. Targeting the tolling at those using the canyon the most in the winter: resort goers. The toll would be fluctuating and not all the time, depending on the demand. 

The environmental study will evaluate the impact these proposed facets will have on the canyon and surrounding areas and watersheds. With over three million visitors a year to the Cottonwood Canyons, the projected population growth and tourism Utah is experiencing projects that travel times by 2050, with no action taken, will increase from 30 minutes downhill in the afternoon to over 49 minutes. In the mornings in 2050 with no action, they are projecting the morning queue length to reach 8,000 feet from the entrance of Big Cottonwood Canyon down Wasatch Boulevard essentially back to the highway. Increasing from 7,225 vehicles per day to 8,750. The road can only handle 1,000-1,200 vehicles per hour per direction, which are markers already often reached at current peak-hour traffic volumes, according to UDOT’s Study Overview. 

One public comment left anonymously on a sticky note proposed running a road that is dedicated to buses from the mobility hub straight to the mouth of the canyon along the eastern edge of Wasatch Boulevard, buses never having to enter and exit on that main road. Another suggested having electric signs at the mobility hub like at the TRAX and FrontRunner stations, counting down the time for the next departure.  

This project is a product of the Utah State Legislature Senate Bill 2 in 2023 that “directs UDOT to use certain legislature-allocated funds to provide enhanced bus service, tolling, a mobility hub, and resort bus stops for Big and Little Cottonwood canyons.” 

According to officials of the consulting team working with UDOT, the project is at least three years out. Currently, the project is in the scoping phase through the winter of 2024 finalizing the study’s purpose and need, the proposed tolling and transit concept with hearings and public comment period concurrently. The next phase, the Environmental Study, will go from winter 2024 to fall 2025 where action alternatives will be refined and analyzing the environmental impact. They will prepare the environmental document during this time with public hearings as well as another public comment period. The final decision to come winter 2025 will respond to public comments and revise the environmental analysis to issue a decision document. Then will begin the building of the infrastructure, if all goes well, of all said proposed factors of the five pronged approach.

This all to hopefully curb single passenger vehicle numbers up the canyon and to promote carpooling and public transportation use to mitigate the increasingly problematic traffic up Big Cottonwood Canyon during peak winter months.  

Whether you think these methods are suitable to the needs of the Wasatch Front, or you have your own ideas to add, expound on, critique of these proposals, leave a public comment. How you as the community sees this project, its benefits and shortcomings. Identify issues and environmental oversights to the study and proposal and submit feedback so UDOT can make community informed decisions. Public comments are the way for the community to have a say in how our infrastructure serves us. The comment period is open until Dec. 13. Leave your comment at udotinput.utah.gov/bccstudy.