What is your community vision?

The ultimate plan for major arterial roads in Weber County will depend on the community philosophy of the residents and leaders. If the current prevailing philosophy continues over the next 30-40 years, which is that the communities in Weber County are bedroom communities and professionals must commute out of the county to work, then north-south arterial roads will be essential. If, however, the communities change their philosophy to develop professional jobs in the county and families go into Ogden instead of Salt Lake City for fun, then more east-west arterial roads will be important.

This document, the Davis Weber East-West Transportation Study kick-off packet, brings up many of the issues that are contributing to lack of transportation planning in the area:
• Water resources threatened
• Residential growth hampers E/W movement already
• Getting residents out of vehicles
• Keeping people working in their own communities
• Lifestyle requires too much need for driving
• Transit is the last thing on developers’ minds
• Each community has its own plan. Hard to get the regional picture
• Hard to project housing density in the future, which makes it hard to anticipate transportation needs
• Elections cause leadership changes, which changes plans
• Elected officials prone to make short-term decisions. Politics and planning don’t mix
• Further west you go, the more environmental conflicts you have
• Hard to do much with major corridors that are already there
• Seems the solution is unattainable by just building more roads
• Balancing environmental concerns with people concerns (i.e. ducks vs. buildings)
• Advantages to planning: mitigate impacts. No planning = opposite
• Congestion = lower quality of life
• No control over development, which is driven by money
• Not just mobility. It’s preserving open space
• More than just motorized transportation. Get people out of cars
• Governments are too slow. Developers are quicker.
• Transit is just N/S, not E/W. Need a car to get E/W
• Thinking beyond just travel. How to plan communities that need less travel
• Perceived stress/tension between environmental and other concerns
• Without planning, the environmental concerns surface at the end.
• Easier to go to open space to develop, then to break through established communities
• If current growth patterns (and the way we deal with them) continue, we’re screwed.
• Conflict between community needs and personal property rights
• Every inch of quality farmland being developed
• Davis/Weber lags in forward-thinking in sustainable development ordinances and regulation (as compared to SLC). It’s a difficult political issue
• Facilities maxed (utilities)
• No one looks at big picture. Development focused only on building houses.
• Powder Mountain development – too many houses for the grade of the road.
• Cities restricted from looking at the facilities that are available to new development
• Cities can, but don’t require connectivity between neighborhoods and between cities
• Conflict between people’s desire for large lots, but low traffic
• We don’t think like big cities
• Everyone wants to live in a cul-de-sac
• Non-motor transit planning is an afterthought
• Too hard for pedestrians to cross major thoroughfares
• Misperception of Davis/Weber as bedroom communities. Forces people to travel long distances to work.

What is your perception of your community? How do you use your car? Because the way we answer those questions contributes to road congestion, how can we change our philosophy to contribute to a more sustainable way of life (and transportation)?