Herriman's own plan names the Lower Meadow crossing for a refuge island; the city says it has to find the money

HERRIMAN — The crosswalk where Lower Meadow Drive meets Sentinel Ridge Boulevard appears in Herriman's adopted Transportation Master Plan, in the document's summary of safety work the Wasatch Front Regional Council identified for the city. The entry calls for "traffic calming and medians along Sentinel Ridge Boulevard including a high visibility crosswalk or pedestrian refuge island at the intersection with Lower Meadow Drive" 1.

The plan was prepared for the city by Wall Consultant Group, whose project team met with the Planning Commission and the City Council and convened a neighbouring-agency meeting on May 27, 2025 that included the Jordan School District, UDOT, Bluffdale, Riverton and South Jordan 1. Herriman adopted it in March 2026 1.

FOX 13 News reported on the crossing in May 2022. Parents and neighbours said then that drivers would not stop for people in the marked crossing, and the school district told the station that children were expected to cross at the signal up the road and that the crossing was not an approved safe school route 2. Herriman police said at the time that the location was a high-complaint area, that crossing guards had once been posted there and were withdrawn after a HAWK signal was installed down the street, and that officers had issued citations and run directed enforcement at the crosswalk 2.

The station returned to the corner in a report published Nov. 9. Neighbours described cars passing within feet of people still in the crossing and children waiting minutes for a gap in traffic, and asked the city to install the flashing lights that warn drivers a pedestrian is present 3. "Theoretically that's possible, and we'll take a look at it," city communications manager Jonathan LaFollette told FOX 13. He added that the city has "a lot of intersections throughout the city, a lot of roads, a lot of places to keep an eye on, and we only have so much money to be able to address things" 3.

**What the record counts**

The station reported, citing the Department of Public Safety, that the intersection has recorded 15 crashes since 2021, two of them involving pedestrians 3.

The city's plan answers the request in its own words. In a table of public comments collected during the plan's development, the response to a resident who asked for a traffic light at exactly this corner reads: "There are plans to widen Sentinel Ridge Boulevard south of this intersection (see project 2-10). Signals must meet MUTCD warrants to be installed" 1. The same warrants standard appears elsewhere in the document as the city's answer to requests for signals and stop signs at other corners 1.

Warrants are the tests in the Federal Highway Administration's Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices that a signal must satisfy before it is installed, and they are not only vehicular tests. Part 4C of the manual lists Warrant 4, Pedestrian Volume, and Warrant 5, School Crossing. Warrant 5 is intended for application where "the fact that school children cross the major street is the principal reason to consider installing a traffic control signal", decided by an engineering study that sets the frequency and adequacy of gaps in traffic against the number of children crossing, and it requires a minimum of 20 students during the highest crossing hour 7. The plan attaches no date or construction year to any crosswalk or refuge island at this corner 1.

The plan's future-traffic modelling does treat the corridor as a problem in its own right. In the 2035 no-build scenario, Sentinel Ridge Boulevard from Rosecrest Road to Bruin View Drive is listed among the segments expected to operate at level of service E or worse — the failing grades in the city's table 1.

**What the law asks of drivers**

Herriman publishes the rules on its own site. At a standard crosswalk, marked with parallel solid lines, a driver must stop and wait for the pedestrian to cross their side of the roadway; at a school-zone crosswalk, typically zebra-striped, the driver must wait until the pedestrian has crossed the entire roadway 4. The city's page also notes that motorists may not operate a vehicle within three feet of a pedestrian, may not pass a vehicle stopped at a crosswalk, and must yield to pedestrians in adjacent crosswalks at a stop or yield sign 4.

Ahead of the school year, the city repeated the distinction in an August post and asked pedestrians to make eye contact with drivers before stepping off the kerb 5.

**The September crash**

The corner has also produced a collision this autumn. In late September a scooter rider was struck in a crosswalk on Sentinel Ridge Boulevard and the driver was cited for failure to yield to a pedestrian 6.

**What happens next**

Nothing on the public record sets a date for a beacon, a refuge island or a raised crossing at Lower Meadow Drive. The plan lists the treatment; it is a planning document, not an appropriation. The city's answer to the station was that it would look at the possibility, and that officials are directing students to the signalised intersections further up the road in the meantime 3.

What would move the corner from a line in the plan to a project is a decision the council has not taken in public: a funding line in a capital budget, or a staff recommendation carried by a vote. The Transportation Master Plan does not contain one for this intersection 1.