Herriman counted the crashes, then budgeted for capacity

Herriman has a better claim to be taken seriously on traffic than most cities its size. Its March Transportation Master Plan rests on five full years of UDOT crash data, January 2020 through December 2024, and opens with the comparison that hurts: 1.8 percent of Herriman's crashes involved a death or suspected serious injury, against 2.2 percent countywide 1. The plan notes the city owns most major corridors, which gives it "the flexibility to implement safety measures as they see fit" 1. It runs a real calming pilot on Emmeline Drive — delineator narrowings, a circle sized around a school bus, speed feedback signs, extra patrols and speed studies before anything permanent 2. When a UDOT Safe Routes to School grant came tied to turn restrictions the neighborhood rejected, the City Council declined the money rather than impose the project 3. In one week it announced signals at Real Vista Drive and Juniper Crest Road and at a new commercial center off 13400 South 45.

The same document complicates that record. On the plan's own comparison table Herriman is worse than Salt Lake County on the two measures that describe how a crash happens: 13 percent of crashes were speed-related against 8 percent countywide, and 61 percent intersection-related against 56 percent 1. Pedestrian and cyclist involvement runs below the county, 3.3 percent against 4.6 1. The city's relative weakness is speed and intersections.

Its toolkit for both is narrow by policy. Speed humps are prohibited — snowplows, emergency response and noise are the reasons given — and active calming is described as expensive, "more common that an active treatment will be implemented as part of a larger project, as opposed to an independent one" 1. At Herriman Rose Boulevard and Main Street a signal studied in 2024 did not meet warrants, and the city's account of why nothing will change there rests on warrants, sight distance and the signal at Black Locust Way 3. Warrants are a defensible standard, and at a specific corner they are also a decision to keep what exists.

The plan also inherited a list. Four rows of its locations-of-concern table cite the previous 2023 plan — places the city already knew about 1. Two severe crashes involving vehicles running stop signs at Real Vista Drive and Mountain View Corridor, answered by a recommendation to work with UDOT on a signal, which the city announced would open on 6 October, three years on 14. A severe pedestrian crash at Pioneer Street and Autumn Glow Cove, where the closest crosswalks were 0.3 miles apart, answered by a flashing-beacon recommendation the new plan carries forward rather than schedules 1. At Rosecrest Road and Sentinel Ridge Boulevard, pedestrians struck in the school crosswalk on the western leg, answered by protected-only left turns and a ban on right turn on red 1. In late September a scooter rider was struck in a crosswalk on Sentinel Ridge Boulevard; the driver was cited for failure to yield 6.

The city's own message that month was an explainer on school-zone zebra crossings versus standard ones, advising pedestrians to make eye contact with drivers 7. The plan's diagnosis is that turning drivers fail to see pedestrians. Eye contact is not a countermeasure for that.

The money settles it. The adopted fiscal 2027 and 2028 budget puts three signals in the transportation impact fee fund — Dansie Oaks Boulevard and Main at $275,000, Miller Crossing Drive and Main at $275,500, Auto Row and 12600 South at $750,000 — while the general capital list for transportation holds an 11800 South reimbursement, Rosecrest Road rehabilitation and a Soleil Hills road phase 8. No line in either names a crosswalk, a beacon, a bulb-out or a calming device 8. The plan's appendix costs the alternative: regional safety projects on 13400 South, Sentinel Ridge Boulevard and Herriman Boulevard at Anthem Park at $7,358,000, $4,287,000 and $1,819,000, with local matches of $1,471,600, $857,400 and $363,800, described as the share "toward SS4A Implementation Grants" 1. None appears in the budget 8.

That is the decision, and the Herriman City Council made it: a two-year budget that funds capacity and rehabilitation and leaves its own safety list to grants it has not yet won. This is not indifference — the plan is more honest than most, and the Emmeline pilot is a real experiment. But a plan that names corners and a budget that does not pay for them are two documents, and only the second changes a street.

What would change our mind: before-and-after speed data from Emmeline Drive showing the 85th-percentile speed down, with a decision to make the treatments permanent; an appropriated local match for one of the three costed projects; or a dated schedule for the locations the 2023 plan identified. Growth sharpens the choice. The plan forecasts 116,700 residents by 2050, 72 percent more than today, and its own build scenario still leaves 12600 South from Auto Row to Bangerter Highway, Real Vista Drive toward Bluffdale and 13400 South west of Mountain View Corridor at unacceptable levels of service 1. Widening answers the queue. It does not answer a driver who does not see a pedestrian.