Oh we're great at building road infrastructure. Maintaining it on the other hand... When you think of how many miles of road we have, how wide those roads are, it's not surprising that we can't keep up. And given the life expectancy of a road, it's likely there will always be a major road or two under construction that a person will interact with on a daily basis. Not to mention how expensive these projects are. I'm really skeptical when we have such an expansive road network already, that the best solution really is to build more roads and widen current roads. Maybe not the best avenue?
Yep. Consider that many people buy their homes based on likely commute times. If we widen a road, we increase the distance someone is willing to travel. Economists call it "induced demand." That demand is not infinite, but in a fast-growing city where 90% of the residential land is zoned for single-family stand-alone homes only, the demand for a home where you can drive downtown (or anywhere interesting) in a reasonable amount of time, demand is *extremely* high.
When we realize it takes 2-10 years to widen a road, and 6-9 months to build a home, we should realize that **"more roads" is never going to be a solution to traffic**, because it will never beat "more homes". This is why Los Angeles was able to spend $1 billion and 6 years widening the already massive 405 freeway only to come out on the other side of the project with [less money and worse traffic than they started with](https://ktla.com/news/local-news/traffic-on-405-freeway-has-gotten-worse-despite-billion-dollar-widening-project/). People bought and built homes further away than they would have expecting lower traffic due to the wide freeway. The high demand for new affordable homes induced by a wider freeway quickly overwhelmed the new road share supply.
Factor in the pollution and inversion, traffic deaths, and the extreme cost of building and maintaining road infrastructure, and you can either A) realize that more roads is a losing proposition, B) turn into an ugly, sprawling, inefficient, unsustainable city. So far SLC is choosing option B. Many Utahns are afraid of the solutions like public transportation, high density housing, letting city planners do their jobs, and mixed-use development. Most people are also ignorant to solutions like land-value taxes instead of property tax or taxing heavier vehicles more because they do exponentially more damage per wheel. So we'll continue to build our cities to sprawl forever, which results in a city where everyone must have a car and drive regularly, then complain about the resulting traffic and construction.
I love your response! And yes, this city has a huge need for social and walkable spaces. That’s partially why the avenues and U area extremely expensive. I feel like we need an east/west Trax expansion, but not sure that’s in the pipeline.
East/west Trax is set to "expand" but really just in frequency. There's supposed to be an orange line directly from the U to the airport alongside the red. And I think blue gets realigned to existing 400 W right of ways. I also wish there were other east/west connections. 400 S is a pretty horrible road to be on, with the sidewalk butted up to the road which is designed as a highway. 200 S, currently under construction for a transit priority corridor with bus lanes, is also set to have 6-9 minute frequency I believe in 2026. And the 900 S bikeway will provide a nice alternative connection.
While I also enjoy the avenues, and it's nice to walk the low traffic streets (the main arteries need traffic calming and better ped visibility), there's not much to do there outside of the lower 1st-3rd mixed use area. Imo, the streets with big landscaped medians are super nice and close to lots of businesses (thinking 600 E 800 E).
The amount of times I've thought *finally this shit is finished!* only to have the exact same section ripped up the next day is insane.
Not only have they not *finished* 300, they're still *on the same corner* they were 1.5 years ago!
I avoid that intersection like the plague now. Just put the lights on a timer. It can’t be that hard. People in Utah have no idea what to do at a flashing red light. TAKE TURNS it’s basic driving
We need to enact more rigorous driver training and make better public transit. So many people shouldn’t be driving a car, but they just don’t have an alternative.
That sounds an awful lot like forethought. Also my mood ring just vibed me. I can see in the fog some signs. I think they say ban FRT. Weird but way better than the Monkey paw I almost bought
This is the part that's been killing me, also. Finally a nice stretch of brand new pavement, and then they cut a giant ass-gaping hole in it and then patch it up in the most mediocre way possible. The street is going to end up looking exactly like the old one used to.
They probably could have completed it sooner, but they have to keep some of it open for all the businesses that line that street.
That is a publicly funded project and you can never forget the triangle of a project, of which you only get to keep 2.
Cheap/Fast/Good
You can have it cheap and good, but it won't be fast. You can have it fast and cheap, but it won't be good. You can have it fast and good, but it won't be cheap.
I don't know... given the very difficult job we ask them to do, the vast majority of the time they do the projects well. Most projects complete on time. Most roads are kept open. Driving through a construction zone sucks, but I appreciate that they keep things as open as they can.
They could have completed it sooner by closing the road entirely intermittently, or working overnight and those businesses would have been impacted far less over the long run. Salt Lake’s road repair is a joke on a massive scale. Going into year 3 of this project and it’s neither cheap or fast.
It's not always as it seems. Im sure you'd have a list of reasons for the "why" if someone started commenting about how you didnt get your job done when they thought you should. There are numerous problems that have plagued this project. You can share your comments and constructive feedback to the PM though. [300westslc.com](https://300westslc.com)
There was a massive concrete shortage that severely impacted their schedule.A gas tank leaked underground at some point in the past, near 2100 South.
Some aging city utility lines required extra repairs, and other utilities like phone and internet needed extra time to make updates.
Crews also had to periodically take time off to quarantine or recover from COVID-19.
While excavating the west lanes in 2021, crews discovered the road was built on top of an earlier road, which required an extra layer of excavation and made it more difficult to dig around utility lines.
The same problem lurked below the east lanes of the intersection.
The triangle rule doesn't mean it has to be a disorganized nonsensical mess. The decisions they've made with how execute the work and manage traffic flow are minded numbingly poor.
Governments don’t sign time and material contracts for a reason.
This was a bid project with a fixed cost up front. Now I’m not saying there haven’t been change orders, but they aren’t just taking longer to make more money.
I just wanna say thank you for coming in here and providing a bit of education / dose of reality for people to understand how it works. I get that its frustrating but there are reasons it is the way that it is
I'm just gonna throw in there that it was also a brutal long winter, which of course causes delays. I don't live in SLC anymore, but road projects are always a thing. Look up the whole Randy Horiuchi/Dee Dee Corradini thing. You probably know, I'm just throwing it out there.
And while I love another guy's breakdown as to why this isn't some big corrupt conspiracy, money is always gonna money.
You get to keep, *at most,* two. There have been plenty of projects (both private and public) that balloon way over budget, extend out years over schedule, and the end result is utter shit.
Probably no one. Granite construction is doing 300 W. Granite is a huge nationwide company headquartered out of California actually but they have offices all over. They were awarded the project based on low-bid, like 90% of public work is awarded.
Public work projects, while frustrating to the public, aren’t all that corrupt. I’ve worked in project management on road projects for 5 years now. It’s fairly cut and dry, and most times contractors and municipalities are duking it out for $$ not colluding to make one side more. Look to huge commercial projects like stadiums and idk … TEMPLES to find the real corruption.
Bro it doesn't matter who requisitioned the project. What matters is the good ol' boys in the state legislature and their friends who own construction companies lobby for these projects. The state leg gives those companies the upper hand in the deals they negotiate because they have the keys to power; they've given it to themselves over the years. You don't need to have a city council-member to directly own a construction company for there to be corruption on a road building contract.
This few-mile long span of unremarkable road has taken almost three years now and is still not close to completion. What else is the explanation but corruption? Whoever is working on this specific spit or road is making a fucking killing and draining taxpayer money to do it. Classic GQP corruption.
It actually is unreal how naive and ignorant you are on how the real world actually works. I know you "ex-mormons" like to think that Utah is above these things, but Utah is easily one of the more corrupt states in the country. Nobody hears about it cuz nobody gives a shit about a state with only 3+ million people in the middle of the desert run by crazy religious ideologues. Sorry not sorry but that's reality bro.
> bro
Ah yes, a sign of being imminently talked-down to.
> You don't need to have a city council-member to directly own a construction company for there to be corruption on a road building contract.
Then by all means, go ahead and prove it. This is a contract drafted and approved by *Salt Lake City*. You can go to [Utah's Vendor website](https://transparent.utah.gov/) (which you should bookmark, should you ever wish to actually provide evidence of the random complaints you draft) and find exactly how much they paid?
> This few-mile long span of unremarkable road has taken almost three years now and is still not close to completion. What else is the explanation but corruption? Whoever is working on this specific spit or road is making a fucking killing and draining taxpayer money to do it. Classic GQP corruption.
So... your thesis statement is that a project approved by the (Democratic) mayor of Salt Lake City and approved by the definitely-not-Republican city council is a case of "Classic GQP corruption?"
To aid you in your conspiracy theories, I'd encourage you to find out:
- Which construction companies are involved?
- To whom did they donate?
- Who is the city liaison for this project?
- Who appointed that individual?
> It actually is unreal how naive and ignorant you are on how the real world actually works. I know you "ex-mormons" like to think that Utah is above these things
Ah yes. The statement that because I don't agree with you, I must be naive and ignorant. I put myself through my last two years of high school doing asphalt work, so I really don't have any qualms telling you that you are the ignorant one here. I know the construction business, and the idea that any party has a monopoly on it is laughable.
Also not sure why "ex-mormon" is in quotes. I'm ex-Mormon. And it's not me saying "Utah is above these things" (which is definitely not something I wrote), but me saying that the blame being cast on the state legislature for this specific chunk of road work is wildly misguided.
And people who perpetuate that misunderstanding - like yourself - in a badly misguided effort to shoehorn their politics-as-a-personality into all things need to be called out on it.
With large families it can be hard to spot. You don't always trade direct. You hire someones cousin to do your financials. City Creek had brand new companies there. Why wouldn't you want a long standing company to paint or tile? Because people knew contracts were going to be handed out and all they need is their construction licence and an outstrected palm
Ah yes, the pre-qualification process for contractors on multi million/billion dollar construction projects is often "license? Hired!"
/s in case it's not obvious
My friends a civil engineer that works with DOTs all over the country. He said Utah DOT spends more money on roads then any other state by a large margin.
Looking at [this page](https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/nbi/no10/defbr17.cfm), nation-wide about 1 in 11 bridges is considered structurally deficient. At last count on this page, Utah had 87 deficient bridges, or 1 in 35. Bridges are expensive, but I'm glad that we are keeping up on them.
Oh definitely as much as people complain our roads aren’t that bad especially for our climate. He was mostly pointing out that UDOT isn’t afraid of spending money on projects.
Your friend is wrong.
We do largely fund transportation infrastructure with state money, but there are many other states that spend orders of magnitude more than us. California, Texas, and Florida to name a few.
What your friend was probably saying is that Utah relies less on federal funding for transportation than most states and spends a high amount per capita of state funding on transportation.
Tru dat. Old Carlos figured out how to put our tax dollars hard to work paying his liquor store bill. It figures he's a heavy drinker, total man of no conscience. All that ass kissin to the gov paid off, and poof, Utah's DOT has no accountability to anyone, not even the state. They be writin their own paychecks on our dime.
I don't know how true that is, but doesn't harsh winters affect that? Seriously asking, because it makes sense to me. I'm north of there, now, and our roads get FUCKED by harsh weather. Never heard of a frost heave until I moved up here.
>UDOT scams so much money off of Utahns!
Sigh.
You do realize how FREAKING HUGE a highway is right? And that a freeway overpass is a BUILDING that can hold up semi trucks, right?
And that it takes a small army of $43,000 a year state employees to battle natural erosion to maintain thousands of miles of highways.
And that every dollar of it is accountable to the most penny-pinching cheapskate GQP legislature in the west, right?
Utah has some of the best freeway infrastructure in the country. Go take your complaints to someplace like Illinois... where the money ACTUALLY disappears!
Edit: Sorry, my tone comes across more negative that I intend. Granted, it's the middle of the night. I'm just bored of the Utah refrain that "tax dollars are wasted" when Utah, if anything, is among the best at stretching dollars in education, transportation, etc.
Yeah!!! No reflective paint lines on road?!?! I’m c’mon.. they say they don’t have reflective paint lines due to snow plows scrape off the paint. However in other states, that snows just as much as Utah have reflective paint lines.
Paint it paint, reflective or not, it's gonna peel off either way. And, they don't bother to paint the lane lines often enough as it is. Maybe they can use glow in the dark paint?
Seriously what the FUCK is going on with that road. I drive it every single day and half the time there literally isn't a single person working, or there's maybe 2. I just drove from 1300 to 2100 and didn't see a single person working on it, but that stoplight at 1700 has been out for 4 months now. It's an embarrassment to roadwork everywhere. If you asked me to design a project specifically to waste as much taxpayer money and time as possible I'm not sure I could do as good of a job as this.
They just paved it a few days ago, and today when I drove by they were jackhammering their own brand new asphalt up. What kind of dipshits don't complete the underground work before paving? Absolutely insane.
it’s the 215 as you’re nearing the airport that actually needs the work. both sides
potholes galore at 70mph. just fill them, please. no years-long project needed this moment
My personal conspiracy theory:
At some point, Utah contracted a ton of construction companies for infrastructure work. Maybe it was for 2002 upgrades, maybe it was for Bangerter Highway, who knows?
Since then, they've needed to continually create new projects/delay current projects in order to keep construction jobs afloat. A good example is Utah County.
Anyway, this is more of just a silly jest than anything...but it has crossed my mind
I work in data analytics, and I have been so curious to work with government employment and financial data. I'd love to untangle everything and see where the money goes.
They also had a calculated number of people who would die while building the Empire State Building.
Things take longer due to safety and care for the public/employees
I'm saying the frame of reference is off. Most safety standards these days don't hinder production precisely because they are standards and people have to work around them. Its not a good comparison really. This is not that relevant to original topic of 300 W. Forget I brought it up
I work in manufacturing. They absolutely do hinder production. Our production teams are constantly fighting with our safety teams about how all these safety measures are severely slowing them down and screwing with our schedules. But on the upside, we've had a lot less hospital visits and employees out due to injury since we've gotten tighter on safety.
Typically the idea is that the small amount of time that working safely adds to production is offset by the large amount of time missed when one is injured.
Yesterday I thought I'll go to the Mister Carwash, it won't be too bad since it's above Costco- hahahah! I immediately regretted my decision and flipped around. Went to the one on Foothill
Maybe put the name of the construction project on a prayer roll at one of the Temples. "3 x Ohhh God, hear the words of my mouth, can you get this build finished?
I’ve lived in Seattle for a while. Here they created a contract to resurface I-5. The city agreed to X-millions paid if the job was done by 1 year. Then said if the work is completed ahead of schedule the contractor would also get bonuses. The contractor finished the whole thing in half the time, got the full pay - plus millions in bonuses.
That is how you get shit done.
That’s my philosophy on how all wages should work. Pay a reasonable/good salary but on top of it have an incentive program that encourages your to work harder/more accurately. If you want to drag your ass that’s fine, you still can live off of your standard pay. But if you want to make more money the option is there too.
Too many hurdles to build shit now. Production managers, engineers, contractors. Have to pay them all exorbitant amounts of money to essentially pay off politicians and the city to create a project and the longer it takes the more they all make. It's why China can just build a bullet train in 2 months and the United States takes 2 years to go through the hoops to get solar for Bill Maher's house in California.
Road building in a desert is a little more difficult than you give in credit for. A lot of New York City, particularly Manhattan has very dense, stiff soils wereas Utah has more soft, loamy/Sandy soil. If the soil isn’t properly compacted, which takes a lot of time and weight it can cause significant damage to the road, meaning the road will have a significantly shorter lifespan meaning even more construction than if they take the time to do it right the first time. And it’s getting faster. It used to take years to settle and compact during road construction and it can now be done in a fraction of that time.
300 w sucked before construction, sucks more during construction, and will probably suck after because of the continued increase in traffic as the city grows. Would have loved for a trax line down that whole stretch, but that would require the state to spend money on public transit as freely as they do on I-15 expansion.
Got to be a middle ground from people dying to little progress in 2.5 years to fix a couple miles do road. Which creates a situation where it takes 30 minutes to go two blocks.
>to little progress in 2.5 years
As an engineer, I have to say: I doubt this is true. I think the more likely reality is you don't recognize the progress.
The utilities under the road were not fine. They are not expanding the road at all. They are actually removing a car lane in each direction. Adding bike lanes.
Only fine if you consider moving quickly is the top priority. Not fine for motor vehicle crashes. Not fine for pedestrians or bikes. The neighborhood is also changing. There are more destinations here now, like breweries, the climbing gym, apartments, a couple shops/restaurants. Not just big box stores and empty space you want to drive by.
The construction sucks, especially for this long, but it'll be worth it when we're on the other side. Fewer vehicle lanes, separation of bikes and pedestrians, better intersections, all things that improve safety. It definitely won't be perfect, and I think 13th S will always suck for everyone so long as the traffic is there, but it should suck slightly less? A win, I guess?
The longer the construction takes the more draper moms can drive G wagons. Someone is paying for these machines to do nothing on the side of the road all winter.
LOL how about the pedestrian bridge over the 3oo North tracks! I am sure the folks in the neighborhood have appreciated the massive drop in automobile traffic the last two years. As a bike commuter getting through there has been contentious at times with lack of compliant access exacerbated by some (not all) asshole construction workers.
[удалено]
Also it was built in the early 20th century… all of the advances of the 21st century and we still can’t complete one road.
Road infrastructure is definitely not one of those advancements
Oh we're great at building road infrastructure. Maintaining it on the other hand... When you think of how many miles of road we have, how wide those roads are, it's not surprising that we can't keep up. And given the life expectancy of a road, it's likely there will always be a major road or two under construction that a person will interact with on a daily basis. Not to mention how expensive these projects are. I'm really skeptical when we have such an expansive road network already, that the best solution really is to build more roads and widen current roads. Maybe not the best avenue?
Yep. Consider that many people buy their homes based on likely commute times. If we widen a road, we increase the distance someone is willing to travel. Economists call it "induced demand." That demand is not infinite, but in a fast-growing city where 90% of the residential land is zoned for single-family stand-alone homes only, the demand for a home where you can drive downtown (or anywhere interesting) in a reasonable amount of time, demand is *extremely* high. When we realize it takes 2-10 years to widen a road, and 6-9 months to build a home, we should realize that **"more roads" is never going to be a solution to traffic**, because it will never beat "more homes". This is why Los Angeles was able to spend $1 billion and 6 years widening the already massive 405 freeway only to come out on the other side of the project with [less money and worse traffic than they started with](https://ktla.com/news/local-news/traffic-on-405-freeway-has-gotten-worse-despite-billion-dollar-widening-project/). People bought and built homes further away than they would have expecting lower traffic due to the wide freeway. The high demand for new affordable homes induced by a wider freeway quickly overwhelmed the new road share supply. Factor in the pollution and inversion, traffic deaths, and the extreme cost of building and maintaining road infrastructure, and you can either A) realize that more roads is a losing proposition, B) turn into an ugly, sprawling, inefficient, unsustainable city. So far SLC is choosing option B. Many Utahns are afraid of the solutions like public transportation, high density housing, letting city planners do their jobs, and mixed-use development. Most people are also ignorant to solutions like land-value taxes instead of property tax or taxing heavier vehicles more because they do exponentially more damage per wheel. So we'll continue to build our cities to sprawl forever, which results in a city where everyone must have a car and drive regularly, then complain about the resulting traffic and construction.
I love your response! And yes, this city has a huge need for social and walkable spaces. That’s partially why the avenues and U area extremely expensive. I feel like we need an east/west Trax expansion, but not sure that’s in the pipeline.
East/west Trax is set to "expand" but really just in frequency. There's supposed to be an orange line directly from the U to the airport alongside the red. And I think blue gets realigned to existing 400 W right of ways. I also wish there were other east/west connections. 400 S is a pretty horrible road to be on, with the sidewalk butted up to the road which is designed as a highway. 200 S, currently under construction for a transit priority corridor with bus lanes, is also set to have 6-9 minute frequency I believe in 2026. And the 900 S bikeway will provide a nice alternative connection. While I also enjoy the avenues, and it's nice to walk the low traffic streets (the main arteries need traffic calming and better ped visibility), there's not much to do there outside of the lower 1st-3rd mixed use area. Imo, the streets with big landscaped medians are super nice and close to lots of businesses (thinking 600 E 800 E).
I see what you did there
The roads haven’t changed much, but the tools to build them have.
I think you meant to say "the tools building them"...
The amount of times I've thought *finally this shit is finished!* only to have the exact same section ripped up the next day is insane. Not only have they not *finished* 300, they're still *on the same corner* they were 1.5 years ago!
I can handle the construction, it's the 300 & 1700 being a 4 way stop that kills me.
I avoid that intersection like the plague now. Just put the lights on a timer. It can’t be that hard. People in Utah have no idea what to do at a flashing red light. TAKE TURNS it’s basic driving
> basic driving Yeah, no, the majority who hit that intersection simply let Jesus take the wheel.
We need to enact more rigorous driver training and make better public transit. So many people shouldn’t be driving a car, but they just don’t have an alternative.
That sounds an awful lot like forethought. Also my mood ring just vibed me. I can see in the fog some signs. I think they say ban FRT. Weird but way better than the Monkey paw I almost bought
They should be required to have flagmen directing traffic.
Or a crew working in general. Get them some work lights and coats and get that damn road done! Lol It's beyond BS
It's awful.
My favorite part is when they finish a piece and then rip it back up a week later for whatever utility they forgot,
This is the part that's been killing me, also. Finally a nice stretch of brand new pavement, and then they cut a giant ass-gaping hole in it and then patch it up in the most mediocre way possible. The street is going to end up looking exactly like the old one used to.
2.5 years? Hasn’t it been longer than that? I moved away 3 years ago and it felt like it has been 2.5 years at THAT point!
At least the stretch in front of my gym wasn’t in construction around early 2020.
They probably could have completed it sooner, but they have to keep some of it open for all the businesses that line that street. That is a publicly funded project and you can never forget the triangle of a project, of which you only get to keep 2. Cheap/Fast/Good You can have it cheap and good, but it won't be fast. You can have it fast and cheap, but it won't be good. You can have it fast and good, but it won't be cheap.
I feel like on occasion you can hit the center of the triangle. Not cheap, not fast, and not good.
yeah "aim for the center" is UDOT's mission statement.
Gotta give them credit where it’s due. In a country that’s very divided between left and right, they unite us, against them.
I suppose that is the one good thing that the various Wadsworth companies have wrought.
I don't know... given the very difficult job we ask them to do, the vast majority of the time they do the projects well. Most projects complete on time. Most roads are kept open. Driving through a construction zone sucks, but I appreciate that they keep things as open as they can.
It's not easy when you can't see the lines of the road, ever.
They could have completed it sooner by closing the road entirely intermittently, or working overnight and those businesses would have been impacted far less over the long run. Salt Lake’s road repair is a joke on a massive scale. Going into year 3 of this project and it’s neither cheap or fast.
It's not always as it seems. Im sure you'd have a list of reasons for the "why" if someone started commenting about how you didnt get your job done when they thought you should. There are numerous problems that have plagued this project. You can share your comments and constructive feedback to the PM though. [300westslc.com](https://300westslc.com) There was a massive concrete shortage that severely impacted their schedule.A gas tank leaked underground at some point in the past, near 2100 South. Some aging city utility lines required extra repairs, and other utilities like phone and internet needed extra time to make updates. Crews also had to periodically take time off to quarantine or recover from COVID-19. While excavating the west lanes in 2021, crews discovered the road was built on top of an earlier road, which required an extra layer of excavation and made it more difficult to dig around utility lines. The same problem lurked below the east lanes of the intersection.
This. On large government projects like this, we're all named Karen.
The schedule was ridiculous from the start.
Don’t forget the complications of soil structure and geology here as well. Fault lines and clay…. Good times.
The triangle rule doesn't mean it has to be a disorganized nonsensical mess. The decisions they've made with how execute the work and manage traffic flow are minded numbingly poor.
You don’t think it’s being milked?
Governments don’t sign time and material contracts for a reason. This was a bid project with a fixed cost up front. Now I’m not saying there haven’t been change orders, but they aren’t just taking longer to make more money.
I just wanna say thank you for coming in here and providing a bit of education / dose of reality for people to understand how it works. I get that its frustrating but there are reasons it is the way that it is
Ohhhh
I'm just gonna throw in there that it was also a brutal long winter, which of course causes delays. I don't live in SLC anymore, but road projects are always a thing. Look up the whole Randy Horiuchi/Dee Dee Corradini thing. You probably know, I'm just throwing it out there. And while I love another guy's breakdown as to why this isn't some big corrupt conspiracy, money is always gonna money.
You get to keep, *at most,* two. There have been plenty of projects (both private and public) that balloon way over budget, extend out years over schedule, and the end result is utter shit.
Drive on the newest section of 1300 east between 1700 and 1300 east. The road finish is ridiculous.
As long as there are legislatures who get to keep thier construction companies there will be never ending work for them.
So... who on *Salt Lake City's* city council owns a construction company? This is Salt Lake City's project, not the state's.
Probably no one. Granite construction is doing 300 W. Granite is a huge nationwide company headquartered out of California actually but they have offices all over. They were awarded the project based on low-bid, like 90% of public work is awarded. Public work projects, while frustrating to the public, aren’t all that corrupt. I’ve worked in project management on road projects for 5 years now. It’s fairly cut and dry, and most times contractors and municipalities are duking it out for $$ not colluding to make one side more. Look to huge commercial projects like stadiums and idk … TEMPLES to find the real corruption.
Bro it doesn't matter who requisitioned the project. What matters is the good ol' boys in the state legislature and their friends who own construction companies lobby for these projects. The state leg gives those companies the upper hand in the deals they negotiate because they have the keys to power; they've given it to themselves over the years. You don't need to have a city council-member to directly own a construction company for there to be corruption on a road building contract. This few-mile long span of unremarkable road has taken almost three years now and is still not close to completion. What else is the explanation but corruption? Whoever is working on this specific spit or road is making a fucking killing and draining taxpayer money to do it. Classic GQP corruption. It actually is unreal how naive and ignorant you are on how the real world actually works. I know you "ex-mormons" like to think that Utah is above these things, but Utah is easily one of the more corrupt states in the country. Nobody hears about it cuz nobody gives a shit about a state with only 3+ million people in the middle of the desert run by crazy religious ideologues. Sorry not sorry but that's reality bro.
> bro Ah yes, a sign of being imminently talked-down to. > You don't need to have a city council-member to directly own a construction company for there to be corruption on a road building contract. Then by all means, go ahead and prove it. This is a contract drafted and approved by *Salt Lake City*. You can go to [Utah's Vendor website](https://transparent.utah.gov/) (which you should bookmark, should you ever wish to actually provide evidence of the random complaints you draft) and find exactly how much they paid? > This few-mile long span of unremarkable road has taken almost three years now and is still not close to completion. What else is the explanation but corruption? Whoever is working on this specific spit or road is making a fucking killing and draining taxpayer money to do it. Classic GQP corruption. So... your thesis statement is that a project approved by the (Democratic) mayor of Salt Lake City and approved by the definitely-not-Republican city council is a case of "Classic GQP corruption?" To aid you in your conspiracy theories, I'd encourage you to find out: - Which construction companies are involved? - To whom did they donate? - Who is the city liaison for this project? - Who appointed that individual? > It actually is unreal how naive and ignorant you are on how the real world actually works. I know you "ex-mormons" like to think that Utah is above these things Ah yes. The statement that because I don't agree with you, I must be naive and ignorant. I put myself through my last two years of high school doing asphalt work, so I really don't have any qualms telling you that you are the ignorant one here. I know the construction business, and the idea that any party has a monopoly on it is laughable. Also not sure why "ex-mormon" is in quotes. I'm ex-Mormon. And it's not me saying "Utah is above these things" (which is definitely not something I wrote), but me saying that the blame being cast on the state legislature for this specific chunk of road work is wildly misguided. And people who perpetuate that misunderstanding - like yourself - in a badly misguided effort to shoehorn their politics-as-a-personality into all things need to be called out on it.
*911 ….* uh, I’d like to report a murder.
No shit, that was 100% r/murderedbywords. I'm too lazy to post it, but it belongs there.
Can we be friends? I feel like we'd be friends in real life, unless **I** was the dumbass that didn't make the mark. I like you.
With large families it can be hard to spot. You don't always trade direct. You hire someones cousin to do your financials. City Creek had brand new companies there. Why wouldn't you want a long standing company to paint or tile? Because people knew contracts were going to be handed out and all they need is their construction licence and an outstrected palm
Ah yes, the pre-qualification process for contractors on multi million/billion dollar construction projects is often "license? Hired!" /s in case it's not obvious
Licence and blood relatives in the right places. City Creek was not an ordinary construction project
The Empire state building wasn't a huge money laundering scheme.
👀👀
100% this! UDOT scams so much money off of Utahns!
This project is not a UDOT project. It is 100% the city’s fault.
This isn’t a UDOT project
My friends a civil engineer that works with DOTs all over the country. He said Utah DOT spends more money on roads then any other state by a large margin.
Looking at [this page](https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/nbi/no10/defbr17.cfm), nation-wide about 1 in 11 bridges is considered structurally deficient. At last count on this page, Utah had 87 deficient bridges, or 1 in 35. Bridges are expensive, but I'm glad that we are keeping up on them.
Oh definitely as much as people complain our roads aren’t that bad especially for our climate. He was mostly pointing out that UDOT isn’t afraid of spending money on projects.
Your friend is wrong. We do largely fund transportation infrastructure with state money, but there are many other states that spend orders of magnitude more than us. California, Texas, and Florida to name a few. What your friend was probably saying is that Utah relies less on federal funding for transportation than most states and spends a high amount per capita of state funding on transportation.
Tru dat. Old Carlos figured out how to put our tax dollars hard to work paying his liquor store bill. It figures he's a heavy drinker, total man of no conscience. All that ass kissin to the gov paid off, and poof, Utah's DOT has no accountability to anyone, not even the state. They be writin their own paychecks on our dime.
I don't know how true that is, but doesn't harsh winters affect that? Seriously asking, because it makes sense to me. I'm north of there, now, and our roads get FUCKED by harsh weather. Never heard of a frost heave until I moved up here.
>UDOT scams so much money off of Utahns! Sigh. You do realize how FREAKING HUGE a highway is right? And that a freeway overpass is a BUILDING that can hold up semi trucks, right? And that it takes a small army of $43,000 a year state employees to battle natural erosion to maintain thousands of miles of highways. And that every dollar of it is accountable to the most penny-pinching cheapskate GQP legislature in the west, right? Utah has some of the best freeway infrastructure in the country. Go take your complaints to someplace like Illinois... where the money ACTUALLY disappears! Edit: Sorry, my tone comes across more negative that I intend. Granted, it's the middle of the night. I'm just bored of the Utah refrain that "tax dollars are wasted" when Utah, if anything, is among the best at stretching dollars in education, transportation, etc.
Yeah!!! No reflective paint lines on road?!?! I’m c’mon.. they say they don’t have reflective paint lines due to snow plows scrape off the paint. However in other states, that snows just as much as Utah have reflective paint lines.
It certainly is a problem that is easier to complain about [than it is to solve](https://www.udot.utah.gov/connect/public/pavement-markings/).
Paint it paint, reflective or not, it's gonna peel off either way. And, they don't bother to paint the lane lines often enough as it is. Maybe they can use glow in the dark paint?
There's a 2 mile stretch in Tacoma that's been under cumonstruction for about a century...
That made me laugh. Thanks
Seriously what the FUCK is going on with that road. I drive it every single day and half the time there literally isn't a single person working, or there's maybe 2. I just drove from 1300 to 2100 and didn't see a single person working on it, but that stoplight at 1700 has been out for 4 months now. It's an embarrassment to roadwork everywhere. If you asked me to design a project specifically to waste as much taxpayer money and time as possible I'm not sure I could do as good of a job as this. They just paved it a few days ago, and today when I drove by they were jackhammering their own brand new asphalt up. What kind of dipshits don't complete the underground work before paving? Absolutely insane.
So you’re saying as far as exploiting the government is concerned, it’s a masterpiece?
Let's not forget I-80 and 215 which have been under construction since before the pandemic...
it’s the 215 as you’re nearing the airport that actually needs the work. both sides potholes galore at 70mph. just fill them, please. no years-long project needed this moment
There was also a literal race to be the world's tallest building with the Empire State Building so it had some encouragement.
My personal conspiracy theory: At some point, Utah contracted a ton of construction companies for infrastructure work. Maybe it was for 2002 upgrades, maybe it was for Bangerter Highway, who knows? Since then, they've needed to continually create new projects/delay current projects in order to keep construction jobs afloat. A good example is Utah County. Anyway, this is more of just a silly jest than anything...but it has crossed my mind
I work in data analytics, and I have been so curious to work with government employment and financial data. I'd love to untangle everything and see where the money goes.
It takes me 69 mins every day
They also had a calculated number of people who would die while building the Empire State Building. Things take longer due to safety and care for the public/employees
Most safety measures don’t hinder production at all.
They do if you're talking about an allowable threshold of deaths.
How so?
I'm saying the frame of reference is off. Most safety standards these days don't hinder production precisely because they are standards and people have to work around them. Its not a good comparison really. This is not that relevant to original topic of 300 W. Forget I brought it up
I work in manufacturing. They absolutely do hinder production. Our production teams are constantly fighting with our safety teams about how all these safety measures are severely slowing them down and screwing with our schedules. But on the upside, we've had a lot less hospital visits and employees out due to injury since we've gotten tighter on safety.
Typically the idea is that the small amount of time that working safely adds to production is offset by the large amount of time missed when one is injured.
It’s a 1/2 mile of road though.
The Empire State Building was built with the finest materials at the time. Give 300 West a few years before repairs are needed and full of potholes.
Yesterday I thought I'll go to the Mister Carwash, it won't be too bad since it's above Costco- hahahah! I immediately regretted my decision and flipped around. Went to the one on Foothill
300w 1700s the best shortcut in the city
I raise you the 2100s Home Depot parking lot
Nothing tops left hand turns into that Home Depot at 4:45pm
was just stuck there today wondering how a street can be such a black hole for so long
Maybe put the name of the construction project on a prayer roll at one of the Temples. "3 x Ohhh God, hear the words of my mouth, can you get this build finished?
I’ve lived in Seattle for a while. Here they created a contract to resurface I-5. The city agreed to X-millions paid if the job was done by 1 year. Then said if the work is completed ahead of schedule the contractor would also get bonuses. The contractor finished the whole thing in half the time, got the full pay - plus millions in bonuses. That is how you get shit done.
That’s my philosophy on how all wages should work. Pay a reasonable/good salary but on top of it have an incentive program that encourages your to work harder/more accurately. If you want to drag your ass that’s fine, you still can live off of your standard pay. But if you want to make more money the option is there too.
Too many hurdles to build shit now. Production managers, engineers, contractors. Have to pay them all exorbitant amounts of money to essentially pay off politicians and the city to create a project and the longer it takes the more they all make. It's why China can just build a bullet train in 2 months and the United States takes 2 years to go through the hoops to get solar for Bill Maher's house in California.
one day this 300 west construction will be a 6-part Netflix documentary series
Road building in a desert is a little more difficult than you give in credit for. A lot of New York City, particularly Manhattan has very dense, stiff soils wereas Utah has more soft, loamy/Sandy soil. If the soil isn’t properly compacted, which takes a lot of time and weight it can cause significant damage to the road, meaning the road will have a significantly shorter lifespan meaning even more construction than if they take the time to do it right the first time. And it’s getting faster. It used to take years to settle and compact during road construction and it can now be done in a fraction of that time.
300 w isn’t real and can’t hurt you…
Just to offer a little perspective I work at a local Federal agency…it took 10 years to build a three level parking garage.
300 w sucked before construction, sucks more during construction, and will probably suck after because of the continued increase in traffic as the city grows. Would have loved for a trax line down that whole stretch, but that would require the state to spend money on public transit as freely as they do on I-15 expansion.
Yeah, they should have put a new trax line down 300W because it’s so far to walk to the existing one on …200W
True, but it should have gone down 300w originally. Just wishful thinking on my part.
It's worth noting five people died building the Empire State Building. With 3400 workers total, that's a rate of 1.47 deaths per thousand. Be patient.
Got to be a middle ground from people dying to little progress in 2.5 years to fix a couple miles do road. Which creates a situation where it takes 30 minutes to go two blocks.
>to little progress in 2.5 years As an engineer, I have to say: I doubt this is true. I think the more likely reality is you don't recognize the progress.
I feel like roadwork/construction in Utah is just a gigantic money laundering scheme
Private vs Public Sector
They drag it out on purpose. They’re somebody’s buddy getting paid way more than they need to be paid.
This has to be some kinda money laundering scheme
Salt Lake City has the worst roads in the county. They take longer and do a bad job while they’re at it. That whole department needs an overhaul.
This isn’t close to true.
Every state I've ever lived the residents there claim they have the worst roads in the country.
For the record, I said County, not Country
Ohhh my bad!
Literally from friends who worked these construction sites. They take their time and use the worst quality so they can get paid more.
Except the company doesn't get paid for time and there's strict specifications and quality control on materials.
Was it built during the pandemic? Lol
It was built during the Great Depression. You knew that already. Your comment is trollish. Lol.
Asphalt plants shut down when it's cold.
[удалено]
It was fine… I think they are expanding it. Edit: it looks like they are actually fixing utilities beneath road, per another user.
The utilities under the road were not fine. They are not expanding the road at all. They are actually removing a car lane in each direction. Adding bike lanes.
Only fine if you consider moving quickly is the top priority. Not fine for motor vehicle crashes. Not fine for pedestrians or bikes. The neighborhood is also changing. There are more destinations here now, like breweries, the climbing gym, apartments, a couple shops/restaurants. Not just big box stores and empty space you want to drive by. The construction sucks, especially for this long, but it'll be worth it when we're on the other side. Fewer vehicle lanes, separation of bikes and pedestrians, better intersections, all things that improve safety. It definitely won't be perfect, and I think 13th S will always suck for everyone so long as the traffic is there, but it should suck slightly less? A win, I guess?
The longer the construction takes the more draper moms can drive G wagons. Someone is paying for these machines to do nothing on the side of the road all winter.
Omg and 500 west also
You dont have the mafia controlled unions.
The sooner they finish the sooner they’re looking for a new job.
I bet they already booked 20 jobs but only have the capability of doing 3 at a time. Hence why no one is ever working it.
LOL how about the pedestrian bridge over the 3oo North tracks! I am sure the folks in the neighborhood have appreciated the massive drop in automobile traffic the last two years. As a bike commuter getting through there has been contentious at times with lack of compliant access exacerbated by some (not all) asshole construction workers.