Dan Hinkley, Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) District Engineer, was joined by a number of his colleagues to visit the Carbon County Commissioners to present their Emerging Areas Study.
Carbon County was identified as being a location where it is anticipated that additional growth will take place. He said that UDOT wishes to be prepared and be able to welcome the growth in and have the needs transportation-wise ready for said growth.
To gain a better understanding of some of the needs, the goals for the study were to engage elected officials, discuss and identify the overall planning goals of the region, create a regional transportation plan that fits the visioning that communities can work towards, provide mapping and technical assistance to support local planning work, identify available funding sources to complete work plan items and more.
This process began last summer with different communities and groups. From there, the vision and goals for the study through the fall and winter was established before potential solutions were looked at. Hinkley stated that they have identified several ideas of things that could happen to prepare for growth.
The action plan is to provide local regional transportation options, expand and diversify economic growth, expand and diversify small town housing, improve community pride and engagement and improve overall health and wellbeing.
As those five areas were focused on, several actions were thought up. The overall need for UDOT is the communicate and update the public regarding the plans. Some of the partners for this study were Price, Helper, Wellington and East Carbon cities, Carbon County, the Southeastern Regional Development Agency (SERDA), PRWID and USU Eastern.
These ideas did not come only from elected officials, but staff that also gave input. A public survey was created and sent out for the entire county to respond. Hinkley stated that they did not get the response they hoped for, but did have a few dozen respond.
Commission Chair Larry Jensen stated that he participated in the various meetings that were hosted and found it very helpful to sit with the other entities in a different setting to get all the questions and concerns out there to prioritize.