Sandy weighs a Dimple Dell road study that Draper would also have to pay for

SANDY — The Sandy City Council is considering a $157,000 contribution toward an environmental study of a Highland Drive extension through Dimple Dell Regional Park, a study that cannot proceed unless Draper City funds its own share, KUTV reported on Nov. 9 1.

No dollar figure for Draper's portion has been made public, and the Draper City Council's agenda for its Nov. 10 meeting carries no item on the study or a funding decision, the Draper Herald reported 1. Sandy's council could direct staff as early as Nov. 10 to add the money to revised budget-carryover resolutions, with a public hearing and a possible vote on the amended package set for Nov. 17, according to the city's council communications director 2.

The $157,000 would come from carryover — money budgeted but not spent, plus unanticipated revenue — rather than from a new appropriation 2.

**What the study would decide**

The corridor has been on regional plans since 1967, when the Wasatch Front Regional Council first mapped Highland Drive as a master-planned arterial, according to a Sandy city fact brief on the project 3. The road is built as five lanes from Creek Road to 9400 South, narrows to three lanes between 9400 South and 9800 South, and south of 9800 South exists only as open space and a utility corridor 3. It resumes at Sandy's southern border and runs through Draper to I-15 at 14600 South 3.

Two obstacles sit in the path: Dimple Dell Regional Park and Hidden Valley Country Club. The city's brief states that the study would identify the most feasible way to cross both while minimizing impact, and that it would settle whether the full corridor is needed 3.

If the answer is yes, Sandy would seek federal funding to build the corridor from 9400 South to the Sandy-Draper border 3. If the answer is no, the brief lists alternatives including a linear park with a three-lane road between Sego Lily Drive and 9800 South 3. The brief also states that a decision not to build would likely require widening Wasatch Boulevard to five lanes and 1300 East to seven 3.

The corridor carries the POMA aqueduct, a 69-inch pressurized waterline, along with other utilities — a constraint the brief cites as limiting what else the land could be used for 3. Most of the corridor is already owned by Sandy, which has been preserving and buying the right of way since a 1996 Major Investment Study was started and never completed 3.

Construction could not begin before 2030 under either scenario, the brief states 3.

**A study first scoped in 1996**

The federal environmental review is not new. A Federal Register notice published Oct. 1, 1996, announced that the Federal Highway Administration, with UDOT, the Utah Transit Authority, the Wasatch Front Regional Council, Sandy, Draper and Salt Lake County, would prepare an environmental impact statement for the corridor from 9400 South in Sandy to I-15 between 11400 South and 14600 South in Draper 4. The alternatives listed then were no action, transportation system management, and build options running from a collector roadway to a freeway, an arterial, and HOV or bus lanes 4. Scoping meetings were planned for November 1996 and a public hearing was to follow a draft statement 4.

Two years later, the Deseret News reported that a local task force was studying a four-lane, limited-access highway across the park as part of a planned 2000 East/Highland Drive extension that would have connected to I-15 at the Bangerter Highway interchange in Draper. Sandy's spokesman at the time, Rick Davis, said the road was a low priority for UDOT and at least a decade away, and described a realistic crossing as four lanes at about 35 mph 5.

In 2016 the regional council approved $4.36 million in Surface Transportation Plan funding for the impact statement, a joint application by Sandy and Draper, with each city splitting a 6.7% match 3. Sandy's brief, updated July 15, 2020, put that match at $146,000 per city, to be requested as a capital line item in the fiscal year 2022 budget, with the study to begin in fall 2021 3. The figure now before Sandy's council is $157,000, drawn from carryover 2.

**The objection**

Sandy resident Deb Hafner, who has lived in the city since 2013 and rides horses in Dimple Dell, told KUTV she doubts the road will be built and questions whether the city has the money for it. She said she worries that a recommendation in favor of the road would leave Sandy under pressure to find construction funding, possibly through a tax increase, and that a recommendation against it leaves open what happens to corridor property, rights of way and easements — including whether federal funds tied to the corridor would have to be repaid 2.

"We shouldn't have to choose between protecting Dimple Dell and solving traffic," Hafner told KUTV, suggesting more traffic signals and safer crossings, or spending the unspent money on a separate traffic study 2.

Council Member Kris Nicholl, who proposed the funding, said in a Facebook comment that she is not advocating for the road, KUTV reported 2. Matthew Perry, the city's council communications director, said the study would also examine alternatives to Sandy's traffic concerns, including taking no action 2.

"Part of the challenge of this study is that we don't yet know what those options are," Perry told KUTV. "This study is in fact what will lift up those options" 2.

**What happens next**

If the money is added and approved, Sandy Public Works Director Ryan Kump and his staff would work with counterparts in Draper, the Wasatch Front Regional Council and UDOT on the study 2. Sandy residents can submit comments to the city at citizencomment@sandy.utah.gov, and public comment is taken at council meetings, which begin at 5:15 p.m. 2.

Draper's contribution remains the open question. Neither the city nor its council has stated a figure or a date for deciding one 1.