Katherine Salamone was crossing 900 East at 300 South in a crosswalk last year when a car hit her dog and the stroller her daughter had been sitting in just moments before. She had just dropped her daughter off at a Salt Lake City day care. Her dog survived.
“I was just sort of shocked, and I had, and still have, so much anger about it,” she said outside a Utah Capitol committee room Thursday. “... Now, every time I cross a street in this city, I’m looking over my shoulder, looking at every possible car that can be turning. I’m just on high alert.”
Salamone biked up to the Capitol on Thursday to testify in opposition to SB195, a bill that would give the Utah Department of Transportation veto power on some traffic-calming projects on roads like 900 East in Salt Lake City.
An earlier version of the bill, which had already passed the Senate on a party-line vote with Republicans in support, would’ve halted city construction projects that aim to slow down car traffic for at least a year.
On Thursday afternoon, the House Transportation Committee voted to approve a new version that removes the yearlong moratorium and instead requires UDOT approval for any city project that removes or narrows lanes on any arterial or collector street.
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Salamone still doesn’t like it.
“It still slows things down,” she said, “and we still have a lot more to do to make our city safer.”
The multipronged legislation also makes other transportation-related changes to state law, including enhancing penalties for some cases of wrong-way driving. Bill sponsors Sen. Wayne Harper, R-Taylorsville, and Rep. Kay Christofferson, R-Lehi, are the chairs of their respective chambers’ transportation committees.
Despite state legislators and Salt Lake City officials calling the substitute a compromise, opposition to the bill overwhelmed support in the packed committee room. The panel forwarded the legislation to the Utah House floor in a 10-2 vote, with only House Minority Leader Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, and Rep. Rosalba Dominguez, D-Salt Lake City, voting against it.
The earlier version placed a moratorium on new safe streets construction from May 2025 to March 2026 as state transportation officials studied all the traffic-calming projects the city had finished or planned to build from July 2015 to July 2035. During the roughly yearlong period, the city would not have been allowed to reduce the number of lanes on any of its roads, decrease speed limits, place speed bumps or otherwise implement any plans that could lower the number of cars traveling down a street.
The substitute legislation narrows the state’s study of Salt Lake City’s existing and future traffic-calming projects to the capital’s central neighborhoods south of 600 North, west of Foothill Drive, north of 2100 South and east of Interstate 15. It also allows streets projects that have already been advertised to move forward and cuts language that would’ve prohibited the city from installing speed bumps, traffic lights or reduced speed limits.
New plans for arterial (like North Temple or 900 East) or collector (think 500 East or 11th Avenue) roads would have to be approved by the state, however.
That means UDOT could get veto power over Mayor Erin Mendenhall’s proposed Green Loop, which, as of now, is slated to run along 200 East, 900 South, 500 West and either North or South Temple. All but 500 West would be subject to state review under the new version of the bill.
Harper, the bill’s sponsor, told committee members he worries that traffic-calming measures are pushing more cars onto fewer roads, specifically state highways like State Street and 400 South, gumming up traffic and creating more emissions. That’s why he wants to study the issue further.
“I don’t believe this is a state takeover of local,” Harper said. “It’s a pause for a moment to take a look and make sure that everything is done properly for the safety and the benefit of the residents of Salt Lake and those people who are invited to come into the Salt Palace, to the Eccles Theater, to the Delta Center, to wherever.”
Opponents of the bill contend that adding a layer of state bureaucracy and usurping local control over the city’s streets will result in fewer traffic-calming projects, continued dangerous conditions for non-car users and slower responses to residents’ transportation concerns.
Committee members largely praised opponents, some of whom were a part of transportation advocacy group Sweet Streets, for sharing their concerns about the bill. Legislators also lauded Harper and Salt Lake City leaders for coming to a compromise.
“This is the best approach,” said Rep. Clint Okerlund, R-Sandy, “and substitute five is a masterpiece of collaboration and won’t make everybody happy, but it’s great.”
Now the bill moves to the full House, where it will need to pass before it heads back to the Senate for approval.
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