South Jordan has the crash numbers now. The council left 11400 South at 45

South Jordan is not a city that ignores traffic. Its Transportation Master Plan, adopted on August 6, 2024 as Resolution 2024-31, rests on five years of UDOT crash data: 5,222 crashes from 2018 through 2022, 98 with suspected serious injuries, eight fatal, and a severe-crash rate of 1.87 per cent against a Salt Lake County average of 1.93 1. The plan counts the improvement since — a 33 per cent fall in severe crashes between 2022 and 2023 1. It says what is not the city’s: 48 of the 98 severe crashes were on UDOT roadways, and both 11400 South widening projects are assigned to UDOT 1. A state highway’s limit is set by the state from an 85th-percentile study. The city’s position is that this one was, and the record agrees.

The June 16 study session deserves reading closely rather than dismissal. The council did not wave the question away. It asked for volumes, asked where crashes happen, asked what calming would accompany a lower sign 2. Members gave reasons: 11400 South is often too congested to reach 45, and a sign without design changes or enforcement would not change behaviour 2. The police chief told them crashes cluster at intersections and that higher speeds shorten reaction time 2. Those are reasons, not evasions.

What complicates the position is that the review happened at all. The police department and the city’s traffic committee asked staff to re-examine the corridor, citing its crash history 2. From April 2021 to April 2026 there were 416 crashes on 11400 South and 480 on South Jordan Parkway in the comparable area; South Jordan Parkway carries about 37,000 vehicles a day to 11400 South’s 29,000, and staff told the council the crash rate on 11400 South was the higher of the two 2. That is a crash every four and a half days. The minutes give totals, not the severity split or the intersections.

The 45 is the council’s own work, as staff described it. After UDOT rebuilt the road from I-15 to Bangerter, a speed study put the 85th percentile in the low-to-mid 40s; UDOT would likely have posted 40, consistent with nearby arterials; a former council member asked for 45; the council adopted a resolution directing staff to approach UDOT for that speed; UDOT set 45 2. With the police department’s numbers in front of it in June, the council left the limit at 45 by consensus and told staff to keep monitoring. It took no vote; the only motions in those minutes are to recess and adjourn 2.

This page asked on October 9 for a crash analysis newer than the plan’s 2018–2022 window 6. The police department had already asked for one, and the answer put the higher rate on the corridor whose limit the council had asked UDOT to raise.

The plan also limits what the city may do. Its traffic-calming chapter lists the treatments South Jordan allows — raised pedestrian crossings, chicanes, mid-block islands, roundabouts, bulb-outs, lateral shifts, on-street parking — and rules out speed humps for stated reasons: plow damage, delay for emergency responders, noise, and a history of vehicle-damage claims 1. Asked in June what calming would follow a lower sign, the city engineer said he knew of no practical roadway design change that would cause drivers to slow naturally 2. Not all belong on a seven-lane arterial. But the city has measured this before: on Jordan River Drive in 2021, after a road diet, added stop signs and a curve, the 85th percentile fell from about 31 mph to 28, at roughly $47,000 in hard costs 5.

What is scheduled instead is capacity. The plan’s Phase 1 answer for 11400 South is a five-to-seven-lane widening from Bangerter to 3600 West at $3.8 million and a five-to-six-or-seven-lane widening from 3600 West to South Jordan Gateway at $82,606,008, both assigned to UDOT, plus a through-U-turn or roundabout at 4000 West at $4.0 million 1. All three sit in the 2023–2032 phase with no construction year 1. In March the city engineer told the council a continuous-flow design there was tied to a future widening and that advancing it early would be “a complex and costly undertaking” 3. UDOT has also been upgrading signals and lighting at Salt Lake County intersections since December 2025 4.

The council chose on June 16, 2026 to keep a limit its own engineer said UDOT would likely not have chosen, on a corridor holding three of the seven segments the plan lists at failing 2023 levels of service, and to wait for a widening with no date 12. The decision is coherent: $86 million against a sign. But if congestion already keeps drivers below 45, the sign is not the variable that matters; the intersections are.

Four things would change our mind, one of them money. Publish the 416-crash review by intersection and severity. Record a vote, with a name and a date, instead of a study-session consensus. Say what the traffic committee recommended, since its request produced the review. Then take one stretch of 11400 South through treatments the plan already allows and measure the 85th percentile before and after, as the city did on Jordan River Drive 15. Until then the record shows a council that asked UDOT for a higher limit, received the crash numbers for that road, and left the sign where it stood.

Sources:

1 City of South Jordan, City Council report of August 6, 2024 — Resolution 2024-31 and the attached Transportation Master Plan (Wall Consulting Group, July 2024): the 2018–2022 UDOT crash analysis (5,222 crashes, 98 suspected serious injuries, eight fatal, 1.87 per cent severe-crash rate against the county average), the 33 per cent reduction in severe crashes between 2022 and 2023, 48 of 98 severe crashes on UDOT roadways, the seven segments at LOS E or F in 2023, the traffic-calming chapter and the treatments it excludes or allows, and Phase 1 projects 1-8 ($3.8 million), 1-9 ($82,606,008) and 2-F ($4.0 million). https://mccmeetingspublic.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/sojordanut-meet-3d5fa873a8104a6cb9acff09e486c5ef/ITEM-Attachment-001-ffb6661977dc4049a3925d3bc93dd159.pdf

2 South Jordan City Council study meeting minutes, June 16, 2026 — the 11400 South speed limit discussion: the 85th-percentile finding, UDOT’s likely 40 mph posting, the council resolution requesting 45, 416 crashes on 11400 South and 480 on South Jordan Parkway from April 2021 to April 2026, average daily traffic of about 37,000 and 29,000 vehicles, the police department and traffic committee request for the review, the city engineer’s statement on design changes, and the council’s consensus to leave the limit unchanged with no recorded vote. https://www.sjc.utah.gov/DocumentCenter/View/12441/06-16-2026-City-of-South-Jordan-City-Council-Study-Meeting-Minutes

3 South Jordan City Council budget meeting minutes, March 4, 2026 — the Fiscal Year 2026-27 capital improvement discussion, the 11400 South park-strip landscaping project from 3600 West to Redwood Road, and the city engineer’s statement that a continuous-flow design on 11400 South is tied to a future widening and would be a complex and costly undertaking to advance early. https://www.utah.gov/pmn/files/1433665.pdf

4 Utah Department of Transportation, “Intersections Improvements | Salt Lake, Wasatch & Summit Counties” — signal, cabinet, detection and lighting upgrades at intersections in Salt Lake County, begun December 2025 and scheduled to conclude in fall 2026. https://udotinput.utah.gov/intersectionsimprovements

5 South Jordan City Council study meeting minutes, June 1, 2021 — the Jordan River Drive traffic item: road dieting, added stop signs and a road curve, the 85th percentile falling from about 31 mph to 28 mph, and about $47,000 in hard costs. https://www.sjc.utah.gov/DocumentCenter/View/1462/06-01-2021-City-Council-Study-Meeting-Minutes-

6 South Valley Ledger, “Traffic in South Jordan: what the record shows,” October 9, 2026 — this page’s earlier argument on the same theme, and its call for a crash analysis newer than the plan’s 2018–2022 window. https://southvalleyledger.com/articles/traffic-in-south-jordan-what-the-record-shows-f63beb/