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South Valley Riverton Journal

Slow down: speed reducers coming to Mountain View Corridor

Jun 29, 2018 02:48PM ● By Travis Barton

A study done in North Carolina saw car collisions decrease with the use of these dual red lights. These will be installed at every cross street along the Mountain View Corridor from 4100 South to Porter Rockwell Boulevard. (Courtesy Herriman City documents)

By Travis Barton | [email protected]

With recent accidents along Mountain View Corridor giving the Herriman community much concern, plans are now in place to implement safety measures along the highway. 

Rosecrest Road in particular was the location of several fatalities in recent years. City Engineer Blake Thomas told the city council during its June 6 work meeting there’s been 46 accidents on Rosecrest between Jan. 1, 2010, and March 31, 2018. This does not include the recent accident on April 9 that killed a 9-month-old baby.

The intersection at Rosecrest and MVC (located near the Providence Hall schools) will see advanced warning systems (flashing yellows) put in place prior to the intersection to warn drivers of an impending red light. UDOT officials will install those signs before the end of the summer, according to Thomas. 

Dual red globe lights are also planned to be installed at every intersection with a cross street along the MVC. This will be from 4100 South to Porter Rockwell Boulevard. Thomas said these lights come from a study done in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, that reduced total collisions by 12 percent and right-angle collisions by 33 percent. Thomas expected these to be installed during same time frame as the advanced warning signs. 

Often, police officers must sit behind one stoplight, meaning they either can’t tell when someone runs a red light or the officer must run the red light as well to pull over the violating driver. A tattle tell light—a blue light mounted on the pole of a stop light that illuminates when the light turns red—will also be installed at the MVC intersection with Rosecrest. Other locations for the tattle tell lights are currently being discussed. 

“So we’re saying this is our fair warning to our residents that we’re going to make it even more difficult to run red lights in our city,” said Mayor David Watts. 

The cost for each of these signs will be covered by UDOT, according to Thomas.   

A new system, recently being tested out in Arizona that uses infrared to track wrong-way drivers, will be installed at the 12600 South intersection of the MVC. The system will send out an alert to police and initiate blinking lights placed on the back of speed limit signs alerting the driver.  

These new signals come about after a meeting between the public, Herriman City and UDOT—along with their recent analyses and studies. 

Thomas said solutions from city staff included extending Autumn Crest Boulevard to 13400 South and connecting Juniper Crest Road to Real Vista Drive across the MVC (expected to be done summer 2019). 

“When that gets connected, we’ll have another connection in case there is an accident on Mountain View (Corridor), you can get people out and around,” Thomas said. 

These two road extensions, Thomas said, will help alleviate the congestion problem at Rosecrest Road often cited by residents.