The verdict at a recent meeting of Summit County’s mayors was that Main Street is becoming a safety hazard.
“At this time, I have had six complaints of near misses of less than a foot, of people not even slowing down, just blowing down Main Street through our crosswalks,” Coalville Mayor Mark Marsh said at the Oct. 17 meeting.
In Oakley and Kamas it’s more of the same. Oakley’s recent community survey showed many residents have concerns about the speed of traffic on state Route 32, the main way in and out of town.
But there are barriers to making streets safer. Sometimes there are bureaucratic hoops to jump through, other times it’s costly.
Kamas is installing new flashing lights outside its elementary school, middle school and high school at the cost of $125,000.
“We're going to cover it because I'm hoping not to have a kid hit on my watch as mayor,” Kamas Mayor Matt McCormick said.
Thankfully, the Utah Department of Transportation gave Kamas $75,000 in grant money to install the lights.
UDOT has also installed additional signage in Coalville, which recently secured its own grant for improving pedestrian walkways on Main Street.
Coalville controls its own speed limit on Main Street. But UDOT sets the speed limit on state Route 32, which runs through Oakley and Kamas.
Oakley city leaders recently asked about putting a streetlight on S.R. 32, and were denied.
East side mayors are worried partly because of two recent, serious accidents in Heber City, both critically injuring students on their way to school. Heber has since installed new crossing signals near its high school.
Even with what seems like a spike in pedestrian-involved car crashes, KSL reported Oct. 17 Utah is on pace for fewer such crashes than normal this year. October is usually the worst month for car crashes, and those are down too.
According to the Utah Department of Public Safety, there have been 663 pedestrian-involved crashes statewide in 2023; 26 of those were fatal.
In about 30% of this year’s pedestrian-involved accidents, the person hit was 20 years old or younger.
As of Oct. 17, the most common place for pedestrians to be hit, accounting for 41% of crashes this year, is in a marked crosswalk. 74% of those crosswalks had some type of flashing beacon or signal.
