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Richmond joins plan to better manage highway, arterials By
Nicole R. Grubbs RICHMOND -- Residents can expect big changes for their roads, starting now and continuing into 2003. The Utah Division of Transportation along with the Cache Development and Planning Organization (CDPO) and Richmond city, will be working together to make U.S. 91 wider and better managed. The plan is only in its early stages, said Jay Aguilara of CDPO. The organization is working with North Logan and Smithfield and the project has passed through the first phase. The first phase involves talking with each community and seeing if they are willing to cooperate with UDOT. Aguilara said cities and UDOT sometimes don't see eye to eye on projects. "The city must now approve the project," he said. With the new policy, "developers can't go shopping for the city with the lowest standards," he said."It's a pretty exciting project." The first phase was funded locally, through cities and Cache County, with two-thirds of the money coming from the Cache Valley Initiative. The second phase is more extensive and will focus on particular roads, such as arterial roads that come off of U.S. 91, Aguilara said. This is an important part of the project because it deals with access management and "it's a difficult problem throughout the county," he said. The objective of access management is to lower the number of accidents and make traffic easier to control. A standard four-way intersection, like most of those located on Logan's Main Street, has 32 "conflict points," according to the CDPO. A conflict point is a place for a potential accident. Well-managed access areas experience 50 percent fewer accidents, Aguilara said. Logan is in a much more difficult position than Richmond, in regards to access management, he said. "Richmond's not an urban area, but someday they will be." Councilman L.D. Bowcutt said he thinks the project will be a good thing for Richmond, especially with the construction from UDOT in a few years. "I don't think any of [the council members] want to see what happened down there in Logan," Bowcutt said. The access management project will pose minimal costs for cities, like Richmond, Bowcutt said. The plan also will help UDOT when they are ready to start construction in 2003. Aguilara said CDPO will notify the council when the draft of the policy is finished.
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