CAPITOL HILL—The Utah Legislature's Transportation Interim Committee on Wednesday abandoned legislation aimed at highway safety standards after securing the commitment of UDOT leadership to conduct an internal review of crosswalk and traffic signal criteria.

The Utah Department of Transportation had come under fire from a group of West Jordan residents, who for nearly a decade have pressed for the installation of a stoplight or other traffic control infrastructure at the intersection of 1075 West and 9000 South (aka Highway 209), a frequent site of vehicle-related collisions, injuries and deaths.

"There was another accident at this same intersection yesterday," West Jordan Republican Rep. Ken Ivory told his committee colleagues. "We’ve got situations where we continue to have accidents and we have unique communities. Are these criteria and the application of them adequate? Are they sufficient?"

Ivory sponsored legislation that would have directed UDOT to conduct an internal audit of its highway standards, which are largely dictated by a package of national guidelines contained in the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices, or MUTCD. He said the MUTCD standards "come from thousands of miles away" and may not always be sufficient to address the unique circumstances in Utah communities like West Jordan, where residents live on one side of a surface highway and are unable or unwilling to cross and access community destinations like churches and schools.

"There are times when the warrant criteria may seem to be rigid," Ivory said. "This is a broader look. This [9000 South] community may be a launching off point, but it’s not specific only to this community."

But several committee members questioned whether the legislation was necessary, or the best method to approach the issue. The Legislature sees hundreds of bills sponsored during it's annual 45-day General Session, which begins in January, often leaving worthwhile proposals unaddressed due to a lack of time to debate them.

UDOT leaders present at Wednesday's hearing testified that the highway department is willing to conduct an internal review with or without legislation requiring them to do so. With that commitment, the Transportation Committee voted unanimously to request a review of safety standards, setting aside, for now, Ivory's bill.

"The number of bills that we face each year go up and up and the amount of time we have each year goes down and down," said Sen. Gregg Buxton, R-West Haven. "This is probably a better way, a for sure way to get things done."

But UDOT has shown little appetite in the past for straying from MUTCD standards, and it remains unclear whether an internal review will approach the status quo with necessary skepticism. The national guidelines were updated in December of 2023, but the changes did little to silence longstanding criticisms from transportation advocates that the MUTCD relies primarily on traffic counts and other car-centric metrics while ignoring the needs of transit riders, cyclists and pedestrians.

As one example of the manual's shortcomings, it evaluates the need for a new crosswalk based on the number of pedestrians who routinely cross at a location where no safe crossing infrastructure exists. This dynamic is a frequent target of MUTCD critics, who compare it to judging the need for a new bridge based on how many people elect to swim across a river.

“American streets are unsafe because of how they are designed. And the way they’re designed often comes down to five letters: the MUTCD,” Transportation for America director Beth Osborne said in 2021, prior to the recent updates.

That criticism was echoed on Wednesday by Glendon Mitchell, a West Jordan resident and founder of the grassroots 1075 West Safety Coalition, who for nine years has advocated for additional signals and crossings on 9000 South. (The surface highway is also in the process of being widened, which will exacerbate the challenges experienced by adjacent residents while facilitating ever-larger volumes of high-speed commuter traffic.)

"The current criteria don’t seem to address the safety and traffic concerns of our area," Mitchell said. "It seems like if there are safety issues and concerns that don’t change but there’s check-boxes—and I respect those have to exist—that those ought to be fully looked at and reviewed to see if there’s opportunities for improvement."

After several lawmakers on the interim committee referenced the nine-year effort to improve conditions at 1075 West, UDOT executive director Carlos Braceras pushed back, reiterating that the intersection's traffic has simply been deemed insufficient to justify changes.

"It hasn’t taken nine years to do the process," Braceras said. "The community didn’t like the answer that came out of the process."

Braceras said that, in response to community feedback, the highway department is moving forward with plans to add medians to other areas of 9000 South, consolidating traffic movements in a way that will satisfy the criteria for a stoplight.

"We have proposed to the community, working with the mayor closely, a solution to get to signalization." Braceras said. "A traffic signal unto itself will not keep these crashes from happening."

Both Ivory and Mitchell noted that the problem goes beyond the mitigation of vehicle collisions, as residents are reluctant to cross the highway and in many cases avoid 9000 South entirely. And Mitchell directly contradicted Braceras, suggesting that local residents who deal with their neighborhood being split by 9000 South on a daily basis don't need outsiders to tell them whether or not a traffic signal would improve conditions.

"A light will make a difference," Mitchell said. "I respectfully disagree."

The UDOT leadership indicated to the committee that its review could be completed by summer, with lawmakers noting that a formal requirement through legislation would likely extend, rather than shorten, that timeline.

"If you’ve got a commitment already from UDOT to do it, you’ve got a win," said Rep. Kay Christofferson, R-Lehi, the committee chairman.