August 18, 2023 – Kimball Junction Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)

BRIDGET:  Hey everyone and welcome to a special edition of our weekly news podcast, Summit in Six. As many of you may know, UDOT is preparing an Environmental Impact Statement – or EIS – to evaluate improvements at the I-80 and State Route-224 interchange at Kimball Junction, and on SR-224 from Kimball Junction through the Olympic Parkway intersection in Summit County. This project builds on information from the Kimball Junction and SR-224 Area Plan that was completed back in 2021. Most recently, the project team held a 30-day public comment period to get feedback on the Alternatives Development and Screening Methodology Report. That report identifies criteria for evaluating the alternatives – and then guides which alternatives are carried forward for more detailed evaluation in the EIS. With that, let’s get going. Today we have with us from the Kimball Junction environmental study team Becky Stromness, the UDOT project manager, and Heidi Spoor, the consultant environmental manager, to answer some common questions about the EIS. BECKY: Thank you so much for having us on, Bridget. Before we start on the more technical aspects, I just want to thank everyone who has commented already. It’s the community’s input that really completes projects like this, so their participation means a lot to us. BRIDGET > BECKY: Absolutely, this kind of involvement is always the goal and what we love to see. So, Becky, can you tell me about the overall point of the study? Is there a specific traffic problem UDOT is trying to solve? BECKY: Great question. That’s something we like to call the “purpose and need” of the project, and it’s what drives all this work. So, the purpose here is to address transportation-related safety and mobility for everyone using Kimball Junction. The first thing we want to address is improving operations and travel times on SR-224 from the I-80 interchange through Olympic Parkway. We are also looking to improve safety by reducing vehicle queues that are backing onto the I-80 off-ramps. Improving pedestrian and bicyclist mobility and accessibility throughout the evaluation area is another important part of this. And the last piece of the purpose is maintaining or improving transit travel times through the evaluation area. I think most folks who have driven through here, especially in the winter, could tell you about the need… the traffic congestion is beyond frustrating. BRIDGET > HEIDI: Coming from first hand experience, it definitely can be…frustrating but it’s really awesome to know that we’re looking at a couple of different potential solutions through this process. So, Heidi, how did UDOT come up with the options that are currently being proposed? HEIDI: In May 2021, UDOT, working with Summit County, published the “Kimball Junction and SR-224 Area Plan” that documented the results of a study conducted using UDOT’s Solutions Development process. That Area Plan was conducted to identify and analyze improvements to address the various parts of the purpose Becky was telling us about, the general travel times, safety, accessibility, et cetera. This study was specifically intended to evaluate solutions that improve capacity and multimodal transportation in the Kimball Junction area and address the existing and long-term mobility needs of residents, commuters, and visitors between the I-80 interchange and the two traffic signals at Ute Boulevard and Olympic Parkway on SR-224. Transportation problems as well as opportunities to solve the problems were established in the study area thanks to input from study partners and the public. Other criteria were developed to balance transportation and environmental goals and objectives. To develop the goals, we used even more input from the study partners and the p