Game Plan for the Legacy

More stories in this morning's Salt Lake Tribune and Standard-Examiner on the rising cost of the Legacy due to delays.

Rep. David Cox of Lehi said of the Sierra Club, "We've got an organization that doesn't give a hoot about the environment or the state. It's a national agenda; it's so unfair for them to do this to us."

The Sierra Club's Mark Heilson was less inclined to say there would be another lawsuit, so long as UDOT pushes extending Redwood Road to U.S. 89 in Farmington.

Since the Super Bowl is coming up this weekend, here's what I see as the Sierra Club's game plan for the Legacy Parkway fight.

They will push for consideration of the Redwood Road alternative to Legacy (what they call the "Smart Growth" alternative -- why is this "smart?"). UDOT will spend extra time and money to study the alternative, and will ultimately conclude that it will not meet the purpose and need for transportation through south Davis County (not because UDOT is pre-determined in favor of Legacy, but because the Redwood Road alternative really will not work!). The Sierra Club will go back to court and argue that UDOT did not "adequately" consider or study the Redwood Road alternative.

Judges hearing the issue, who are not technical people, and thus may easily be convinced that perhaps more could be done, may say, "yeah, there is more that could be done to study that alternative," and the whole project is stopped again for a couple of years while millions more is spent to study an alternative that in the end will still show it can't meet the need.

In the meantime, construction costs escalate, public dissatisfaction grows, pressure builds, and eventually, UDOT gives up because it is just taking too long and costs too much, and agrees to build something like Redwood Road because that's all they can get, even though it doesn't meet the need, but it won't cost nearly as much as the protracted litigation and study and escalating cost of the Legacy.

Winning by delay and rising costs, not because they have a "smarter" or better plan. Then the Sierra Club can go out nationally and say, "see, we are so good and powerful, we can stop stuff like the Legacy to save our environment. Give us money!"

So how does the other team counter this? Hmmm....