Big ideas don’t die overnight, and the idea of building a bypass for Highway 191 that will divert through traffic off Main Street is likely to be no exception. For the time being, city and district officials want to put the idea aside.
The view over Mountain View, the neighborhood next to a planned bypass for Highway 191, was included in a 2018 study by the Utah Department of Transportation. City and county officials are now trying to set aside any plans for this or other plans to pass traffic from Main Street. Photo by Carter Pape
The concept originally caught on in the 1980s when locals tried to run through traffic in the city rather than on Main Street. The main and middle streets of Moab formed the “main street” of the city at different times to different degrees.
Today Moab’s main street doubles as a state highway and a retail corridor. Tourists shopping for souvenirs and eating along the main street are accompanied by road traffic in the form of semis, off-highway vehicles, RVs, and everything in between.
On Tuesday, March 16, Grand County’s officials agreed with opponents of the bypass by voting 6-1 for a formal position against the plan.
The commissioners’ move signaled to elected city officials and residents of the Mountain View neighborhood that the county had sided with them amid the recent iteration of the bypass discussions.
Officials are also being set up to remove the mention of a bypass from a regional transport plan that city and county officials are preparing. This sets funding priorities as the Utah Department of Transportation provides funding for projects across the state.
“In my opinion, we shouldn’t include the bypass in the regional transport plan,” said Commissioner Sarah Stock. “I’ve read through [the draft plan] and the bypass is pointed out very often, and it also becomes clear that if we take the bypass out of this plan, UDOT cannot invest any money in it. “
Stock went on to say that avoiding the funding of a bypass road was a reason to remove the bypass road from the draft plan so that the Department of Transportation would not interpret that it was “licensed to continue studying”.
Stock compared the situation to the proposal for the Book Cliffs Highway, a regional plan that Uintah County and others had pursued against Grand’s will. Investigating the plan received funding that Stock labeled wasted after the plan was abandoned.
“In the spirit of fiscal conservatism, I think we should take the circumvention of our future planning studies out until we allow some of these other attempts at easing tourist traffic,” Stock said.
The idea of a bypass has long been ill-defined, and there are several ways of doing it in the public consciousness. The most famous include variations on a route that Semis and other passers-by would take next to the Mountain View neighborhood at the southwest end of town.
This route was last examined in a 2018 feasibility study conducted by the Utah Department of Transportation. The study examined four main route options and some variations of them to assess their feasibility and alignment with local and state goals for the construction of a bypass road.
The study evaluated a conversion from 400 East to a bypass, conversion from 500 West, multiple routes connected to Highway 191 by Mountain View, and even an orientation to keep traffic from near Hole ‘N’ The Rock to direct to Kane Springs Road.
Two routes that would have seen a second bridge over the Colorado River to Potash Road were further investigated. The through traffic along Kane Creek Road would have been removed from the junction with Main Street; the other would have built a road southwest of Mountain View.
Other routes that dominate Moab’s imagination are farther away. One would have the bypass construction under Moab. Unaffordable costs and technical challenges related to flood protection and the like make this idea less viable. Others have suggested, usually jokingly, that a bypass should be installed just above Main Street.
Neither of them will receive another exam or review for the foreseeable future, as both city and county officials have voted to take formal positions against the bypass.
The only objection came from Commissioner Evan Clapper, who said he wanted the Commission to take a position against the two specific routes the 2018 study landed on.
“I would be more comfortable taking the stance that we don’t support either of these options,” said Clapper. “That would leave no mention [of the bypass] more nebulous in the regional plan. I definitely don’t support two noisy, busy roads in the valley, but if there was a way to swap one for another, maybe I could envision something like that. “
Clapper went on to talk about the Breckenridge, Colorado format, where two blocks of the city’s main street are pedestrian-only, and through traffic is routed through the city. He said the format creates a much more attractive high street.
Ultimately, the commission agreed to take a stand against further investigation of a 6-1 bypass. Elected officials will consider removing all mentions of a bypass from a regional transport plan that the city and county are working to finalize.
The regional plan will eventually go to the Utah Department of Transportation as the city and county apply for funding for the transportation priorities.
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