by Jamie Belnap

STAFF WRITER

The Midvalley Highway, which has been in the making since 1996, has been pushed back another year as engineers work to finalize a route for the project.

Last year, transportation officials announced a route for the road, which will stretch from north to south the length of the Tooele Valley, was expected to be finalized this month. However, ongoing environmental assessments have revised that timetable.

"If you don't do it right the first time then you ultimately spend more time going back to fix it later," said Tooele County Engineer Vern Loveless. "We are moving as fast as we prudently can."

In May 2007, the Federal Highway Administration, the Utah Department of Transportation, and Tooele County officials began the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process -- a required program for all federally funded projects that assesses the effects of a proposed roadway on the natural and built environment of an area. Parsons Brinckerhoff, a global engineering consulting firm, was contracted by the county to complete the study.

About seven months later, the legwork done in the form of an Environmental Assessment was abandoned after it was determined that each alternative location considered had large impacts to the surrounding area. As a result, officials transitioned from the smaller study to a full-blown Environmental Impact Statement -- which comes with a $4.5 million price tag that will be largely be funded by the Federal Highway Administration, according to Loveless.

"If there are potentially significant impacts with a project, NEPA requires the agencies to conduct an EIS," said Pam Murray, an official with Parsons Brinckerhoff.

Currently five alignments are being discussed. All of the routes would begin south of Tooele City at SR-36 and feed onto I-80. One route would connect with Sheep Lane; another would be sandwiched between Sheep Lane and the Erda Airport, closely skimming south Tooele neighborhoods; a third would be located just east of the airport; a fourth alternative would run along 1200 West; and a final alignment would follow the same path as the 1200 West alignment, but would be built as an expressway with three lanes in each direction and lighted intersections -- similar to Bangerter Highway in the Salt Lake Valley.

Murray said field work for the EIS is currently underway and a public meeting is slated for this summer.

A draft of the EIS is scheduled to be available for public review in December, and the target date for the final document will be May 2009, with a final decision to be made in August 2009.

The purpose of the highway is to add additional north-south traffic capacity, reduce congestion on SR-36, reduce congestion at the Lake Point interchange, and improve mobility within the Tooele Valley as a whole. Officials say a new route is necessary because the population in the valley is projected to nearly triple in the mid-valley area. Traffic analysis done by Parsons Brinckerhoff determined that without the new highway SR-36 will fail and the Lake Point interchange will not be able to accommodate projected traffic flows.

The public is encouraged to learn about and comment on the project at www.midvalleyhighway.com.

"We know people are busy with work, home and family so we are trying to make the project Web site an easy way to learn about the project and give us comments," Murray said.

jamieb@tooeletranscript.com