Provo advisory committee presses for O‑D data and incremental fixes to ease east–west travel

Noah Gordon, vice chair of the Provo Transportation Advisory Committee, opened Thursday’s meeting and framed a central question: what do residents mean when they say Provo lacks east–west connectivity? “I will be conducting the meeting today … I’m Noah Gordon, the vice chair,” he told attendees before the committee began its discussion of corridor constraints and potential fixes.

The committee’s discussion focused on four physical barriers — Interstate 15, the railroad corridor, the Provo River and the BYU campus — and the different ways those barriers affect neighborhoods on the east and west sides of the city. Staff summarized prior analyses in the general plan, the transportation master plan and corridor‑level level‑of‑service work from the Highway Capacity Manual, and recommended using origin–destination (O‑D) data to better target investments.

“Kendall, can you get O‑D data?” a committee member asked; staff agreed to work with the Mountainland Association of Governments (MAG) or retain a consultant to assemble trip tables and visual maps for an August presentation. Staff emphasized that much of the existing analysis is modeled behavior and that showing trips visually will be important to help residents understand tradeoffs.

The committee repeatedly returned to Center Street, where several members described both chronic congestion and safety problems at the interstate interchange. One committee member said, “in the two years after it opened, it was the deadliest interstate interchange in the state,” and other members noted the number of rear‑end crashes and conflict points where the southbound off‑ramp weaves into local traffic.

Staff noted that UDOT’s planned work is focused and limited: the southbound off‑ramp is slated for modification in 2028 to remove the signal for that movement but will not rebuild the whole interchange. Committee members pressed whether that limited fix would improve bicycle safety or reduce the worst conflicts and urged the city to keep focusing on other local measures, such as signal timing, restriping and adding center turn lanes where appropriate.

Speakers debated the role of First North as an arterial alternative, one‑way couplets, and how prior council directives and development constraints shaped the interchange design. Several members argued that routing and corridor decisions must weigh downtown commercial vitality against throughput; others warned that one‑way couplets often produce short‑term throughput gains at the cost of local businesses.

The committee also discussed a local restriping project tied to a new apartment development that will create a three‑lane cross‑section with a center turn lane to reduce rear‑end collisions on an over‑capacity segment. Staff said corridor preservation funds could be used to acquire parcels needed to connect segments such as 450/500 if acquisition becomes a priority.

The meeting closed its east–west conversation by reiterating a data need: local O‑D tables, visually presented, to show where intra‑city trips originate and end so the committee can prioritize improvements that address where people actually travel. Staff committed to return with modeled trip tables and whatever observed O‑D data MAG can provide for the August meeting.

The committee approved the May 21 minutes earlier in the meeting and adjourned after brief engineering updates. The body said it will not meet in July and expects to reconvene in August.