Nibley resident hopes to prevent semi traffic along future road

NIBLEY – Some residents who live in neighborhoods along 1200 West are concerned. There are plans to extend the road in both directions, connecting it with Hyrum and 1000 West in Logan.

Nibley resident James Boyd is one of those. He recently purchased a house along 1200 West and said he was since informed by a city employee it would be on a “major thoroughfare.” Boyd said he isn’t against the road and understands it has been a part of the city’s plan for years, but his worry is that heavy semi-traffic will become the norm. When the road is complete it will be the quickest route for trucks going to and from the JBS and E.A. Miller plants in Hyrum.

In an attempt to prevent the semi traffic, Boyd has distributed a flier encouraging Nibley residents to email city officials and make public comment in city council meetings. A successful campaign would require semis to take a longer route around the neighborhood.

“Hundreds of families are literally building their own homes, doing the work,” he said. “They are sweating, they are out there, they are buying their future, their equity. Some of them are going to be 20 feet, which is the minimum distance a backyard can be, from a potential main road. If the traffic continues to accelerate it would eventually be widened and would impact properties.”

Councilmember Kathryn Beus said the city doesn’t have any immediate plans to complete the road and added that it probably won’t be finished until developments are built along it, which she believes will take at least several more years. She said she thinks 3200 South – the east-west road through Nibley currently being used as a designated route for semis – is a better fit to be able to handle the traffic, but it’s not a decision she thinks should be made right now. Preventing the semis from driving down the road would require an amendment to the city’s Transportation Master Plan, something Beus called “premature.”

“(The Transportation Master Plan) doesn’t designate it as really anything right now,” she said. “It could be (a designated road) or it could not be. To change that we would have to make the determination once it is finished.”

But what Boyd and others want right now is clarification. He said he wants the issue addressed and the position of the city made clear.

“We want the city to have a public meeting and share what their plans are,” he said. “One of the concerns as a citizen is, as I talk to different people – city council members, mayors, city planners – they all have slightly different views of how his street is going to be used. It varies from, ‘Yep, semis are going to use it. Sorry, that is just what is going to happen,’ to ‘I would never let semis go through there.’”

Some in the city, according to Beus, don’t even want the road to eventually connect, but she said there are some misunderstandings as to how much the road will help the city. She said most traffic in Nibley is currently funneled out of 3200 South (which Beus said is built to handle the traffic) or 800 West (which she said is not). The 1200 West road, Beus said, was planned with excellent foresight to accommodate more traffic.

“There are very few homes that have driveways on (1200 West),” she said. “If you go and you drive it you see that it has been planned exceptionally well to minimize impact on residents. A lot of people work in Logan, a lot of people work in Hyrum, so I think it would help facilitate transportation.”

Despite his concerns, Boyd said he has been pleased with city officials and their willingness to respond and meet with him, even if nothing has been resolved.

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