Pedestrian bridges are common above some busy streets near schools in Utah. But a super-long, very expensive version will in the not-too-distant future cross Interstate 15 (and train tracks) between the Orem FrontRunner station and Utah Valley University.
Because of redesign and rising costs from steel tariffs, the Utah Transportation Commission voted Friday to add an extra $10 million to what will now be a $30 million bridge for pedestrians. Completion is planned for fall 2020.
Commissioner Donna Law said she has raised concern about the cost, and noted in comparison that its price is equivalent to about half the $66 million the state set aside to study and solve congestion in crowded Little Cottonwood Canyon.
But she said she became convinced that the Utah Department of Transportation, UVU and the Utah Transit Agency have looked at all options to resolve traffic problems near the university, and that the bridge is a needed part of solutions.
“It completes the puzzle for us,” Frank Young, UVU associate vice president of facilities and planning, told the commission.
UVU has facilities and parking on both sides of the freeway, and the bridge will help connect them.
Young said many options have been examined through the years to connect the two sides of the campus, including tunnels, a gondola and even “a pneumatic tube system that would push people back and forth.”
He added, “There will be 8,000 student beds on the west side of I-15. Those students now have to drive to [the main] campus. They have been using the bus system recently, but we think this connecting bridge will facilitate and make it even easier for our students who live on the west” side.
UVU recently has been offering free parking passes for lots on the west side of the freeway, and has offered all students and faculty and their families free UTA passes that allow use of its Utah Valley Express buses that serve both the Frontrunner station and the UVU campus.
Young said that has helped solve many of the parking and traffic problems at UVU. “This bridge will supplement that and encourage more” use of FrontRunner or parking on the west side instead of driving to the main campus.
“We know it’s expensive, but we’re very large,” adding that UVU’s 40,000 students make it the largest university in the state, and enrollment is projected to grow to 50,000 over the next decade or so, Young said. “We have a lot of people who will use it.”
Young said UVU is contributing $6 million to the project, and UTA is providing $4 million.
