Bluffdale refreshed the forecast to 2050 and left the crash analysis in 2016

Bluffdale has done more than most cities its size. It adopted a transportation plan in 2017, updated it in 2020 and again this September, adopted an Active Transportation Master Plan in September 2025, and on the same night narrowed the minimum lane on minor collectors from 12 to 11 feet, which staff said "may also contribute to traffic calming and reduced vehicle speeds" 1. In September 2024 it adopted a Traffic Manual whose stated aim is to reduce speeds, noise and "collision frequency and severity", scoring on 85th-percentile speed, the share of drivers 10 mph over the limit and daily volume 2.

The forecast is new: 46 per cent growth by 2050, to 29,928 from 20,464 1. The 2025 analysis behind the 14600 South project finds the no-build 2050 condition failing at Redwood Road and 14600 South, with level of service F at 1690 West and 1300 West in the afternoon peak, and the plan answers with a four-lane 14600 South from Redwood Road to Spring View Parkway, estimated at $18,100,000, plus a signal or roundabout "be considered" at 1690 West 1. The regional council credits Bluffdale with seven safety projects completed in 2025, including raised crosswalks at trail crossings 3.

Appendix A is where the plan stops being new. Its crash analysis covers 2010 to 2016: 993 crashes in city limits, 19 severe, five fatal, drawn from UDOT’s crash portal 1. Appendix B still describes an open house on 12 January 2017 1. The staff report listed what the update changed — completed projects, the removal of active-transportation sections and standard drawings, a travel-demand model rebuilt "with latest traffic data" 1. Refreshing the crash analysis is not on the list, though the existing-conditions chapter was revised in the same document and now counts nine signalized intersections 1.

That decade-old analysis points where the plan does not go. It found 39 per cent of crashes were single-vehicle, many of them run-off-the-road on the state highways; 225 of the 993 on local streets; and "no single intersection" outside them with a high concentration of crashes 1. The regional council’s most-cited risk factors for serious and fatal crashes from 2021 to 2025 are the intersection, roadway departure and speed, in that order 3. The city’s answer to speed is enforcement: police traffic offences rose from 4,704 in 2024 to 6,671 in 2025 4.

The money for the manual’s work is small. The adopted fiscal 2027 budget puts Misc. Traffic Calming Measures at $339 actually spent in fiscal 2025 and $50,000 for 2027, while the same capital fund carries $50,000,000 for the 14600 South railroad crossing 5. In April the city manager’s proposed budget cut the calming line to $20,000, one of three requests "reduced or removed" and left to "be addressed in the future" 6. On 27 May the council added $30,000 back "based on citizen feedback" 7. Together they are the programme.

The programme’s test has no public scoreboard. The manual says a site that scores 15 points on one factor — an 85th-percentile speed 16 mph or more over the limit, or 20 per cent of drivers 10 mph or more over — "should be considered" for calming 2. Considered is the operative word: every recommendation goes to the council as a plan and a cost, and no council packet or budget lists the streets that scored, what was installed, or what was deferred.

Residents brought the manual’s own case to the hearing. On 23 September speakers described 1690 West as a 25 mph street used as a shortcut to 14600 South; one asked the council to close it or install speed humps, and another asked whether the 2025 counts were taken while 14600 South was closed, and so whether they describe normal conditions 8. The city has had that corridor shut since late 2025 and does not expect it open until late April 2027 9. The minutes record the question and no answer.

Our judgement is about a decision. On 23 September 2026 the Bluffdale City Council voted 5-0 for Ordinance 2026-17, making the 2026 Transportation Master Plan a component of the General Plan 8. What it adopted is a capacity plan with a safety appendix: the model looks to 2050, the crash analysis to 2016, and the only capital line aimed at speed on residential streets runs on $50,000 a year with no ledger. The consequence is not that Bluffdale is unsafe, but that nobody can say whether it is getting safer, while the largest cheques go against a forecast rather than a record.

Four things would change our mind: crash counts for 2017 through 2025 by location and severity, from the state portal the plan already uses 1; a crash-reduction target in the plan, with what a wider 14600 South is expected to do to speeds on 1690 West 1; the calming queue published and funded at the size of that queue; and a re-count of 14600 South after it reopens in April 2027 9.

This page argued six days ago that Bluffdale’s pavement schedule is one sentence in a budget 10. One level up, the pattern repeats: the programme is written down, the model is current, and the evidence ends in 2016.