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- Farmington North Station Area Plan Certified!
- WFRC Named One of Utah’s 100 Companies Championing Women
- Map of the Month: Utah Healthy Places Index
- Government Affairs Update
- Guiding Our Growth: Utah’s Statewide Conversation on Growth
- Rural Communities Opportunity Grant
- Zero Deaths and Safe System
- From Our Partners
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Farmington North Station Area Plan Certified!
First SAP Certification, Increases Housing and Mixed-Uses Around Station
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In an effort to address Utah's housing shortage, House Bill 462 was passed during the 2022 legislative session. The bill requires communities with a FrontRunner, TRAX, or Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) station to complete a Station Area Plan (SAP) within a half mile of the station (one quarter mile for BRT). Collaboratively planning around stations with key stakeholders and the Utah Transit Authority (UTA) to develop SAPs unique to their needs will increase the availability and affordability of housing, promote sustainable environmental conditions, enhance access to opportunities, and increase transportation choices and connections, while maintaining a high quality of life.
Once a SAP is adopted and submitted, it is reviewed by the community's Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), Wasatch Front Regional Council (WFRC) or Mountainland Association of Governments (MAG), in consultation with UTA, and certified as fulfilling the statutory requirements.
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Farmington, like the rest of the state, is experiencing significant growth. For many years, the city has been working hard to help guide growth through ongoing planning efforts, including developing the Station Area Plan funded with support from WFRC’s Transportation Land Use Connection (TLC) program. This SAP establishes a cohesive vision that will guide the development of a vibrant, connected, and unique community. The SAP provides an update to the North Station Master Plan, introduces a remote hub concept that will provide a direct, uninterrupted connection for commuter rail users to shops, offices, and homes. It also outlines pedestrian and bicycle improvements, provides enhanced connections to the Davis County Fairgrounds and regional park, and creates a place to live, work, and play. The Farmington North SAP can be found here.
Earlier this fall, Farmington’s North SAP was adopted by the City and submitted to WFRC for review and on Thursday, October 27, with much excitement, Farmington North Station Area Plan became the first station in the region to be certified since the adoption of HB462.
Congratulations Farmington on your hard work and certification!
WFRC and MAG have technical assistance funds available to support your community in station area planning; the application can be found here. If you have completed a Station Area Plan that meets the requirements of HB 462, you can complete this Submission Form. If you have any questions about Station Area Plans or would like a review of your plan, contact Meg Townsend at mtownsend@wfrc.org.
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WFRC Named One of Utah’s 100 Companies Championing Women | |
WFRC is proud to be named as one of Utah’s 100 Companies Championing Women from the Women in Leadership Project. The award is made on behalf of Governor Spencer Cox, Governor’s Office of Economic Development (Go Utah), and the Utah Women & Leadership Project at Utah State University. WFRC continually strives to support women in the workplace and in all the work we do. Roughly half of our staff are women, including several managers and leaders. WFRC promotes pay equity, and we offer family friendly benefits and policies, including flexible work schedules and hybrid options, fertility and adoption benefits, and paid family leave. Additionally, we consistently seek to recruit a diverse pool of applicants for all job openings. As we celebrate our achievement, we recommit to treating all of our employees with respect as valued members and contributors who bring unique skills and perspectives. | | |
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On October 20th, Utah Department of Health and Human Services released its new and innovative mapping tool, the Utah Healthy Places Index (HPI).
The Utah HPI provides community leaders, policymakers, planners, transportation agencies, and other stakeholders sound and validated, neighborhood-level data on community conditions known to impact health, such as job opportunities, education, and transportation.
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Midterm Election
Election Day is Tuesday, November 8! Be sure to fill out your ballot that you received in the mail, and mail it in or drop it off. Refer to your county elections website or vote.utah.gov with any questions you might have.
October Legislative Interim
The legislature convened for appropriations subcommittee meetings, and interim committee meetings in October as they continued to study various items and draft committee bills in preparation of the 2023 General Legislative Session. In Infrastructure and General Government Appropriations, the subcommittee heard from UDOT and UTA as they shared the implementation plan and funding request for implementing HB322, which requires UDOT to oversee state-funded, fixed-guideway transit projects. UDOT also shared their plans for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program, which is an IIJA (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) program that provides electric vehicle (EV) funding to Utah. In the Transportation Interim Committee, there were presentations on corridor preservation from WFRC, MAG, UDOT, and Salt Lake County, and a transit speed and efficiency presentation from UTA. The legislature will meet in interim once more in November before the holiday break prior to January’s legislative session.
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Guiding Our Growth: Utah’s Statewide Conversation on Growth | |
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Growth has been our constant companion in Utah. This growth has brought Utah many new opportunities, such as a strong economy and diverse opportunities. However, it has also brought challenges, such as traffic congestion, housing affordability, and crowding of recreation areas. This growth will continue, as our families want to stay here, and others choose to move here. How this growth occurs matters. Utahns have the ability to shape the way this growth occurs to ensure that we preserve what makes Utah special. It’s time to have a statewide conversation about growth.
Many partners are involved in a new Statewide Conversation about Growth. As part of the initiative, we want to hear from you! Please consider taking a moment to complete a survey. Input gathered through February 2023 will shape the options that are explored as the project partners evaluate a variety of paths forward. Additional input opportunities will extend through the summer of 2023, so visit guidingourgrowth.utah.gov often to follow the conversation and share your thoughts.
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Rural Communities Opportunity Grant
Go Utah’s Center for Rural Development administers the Rural Communities Opportunity Grant (RCOG). These grants are available to rural counties, cities, and towns to support unique economic development projects and activities. The Rural Opportunity Advisory Committee oversees the funding opportunities. The grant addresses the economic development needs of rural communities, which may qualify to receive grant funding of up to $600,000.
Eligible rural communities include:
- Counties of the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth class
- Cities, towns, and metro townships located within those counties, and
- Municipalities with a population of 10,000 or less in counties of the second class.
Several of the Wasatch Front Regional Council’s communities are eligible to apply. Click here to view the RCOG flyer that includes a listing of eligible communities.
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Zero Deaths and Safe System | | |
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In the transportation world, the all-too frequent headlines of people dying in fatal crashes has been jarring. In 2022 alone, 13 people have been hit and killed while riding a bike and 40 people have been hit and killed while walking in Utah. This is not to mention those that have been severely injured in a crash. While each tragic accident involves its own circumstances, the question has to be asked, “How can we get to Zero Fatalities’ goal of ‘eliminating fatalities on our roadways’?”
There are two places to start. First, all of our communities should become familiar with the Safe System approach to addressing roadway safety. One of the key principles is that deaths and serious injuries on our roadways are unacceptable. We shouldn’t have to throw up our hands in despair. Rather, steps can be taken to eliminate serious injuries and deaths, which brings us to our next point: roadway design is the most influential aspect of roadway safety.
For those that recently attended the Utah League of Cities and Towns (ULCT) conference, you’ll recall that keynote speaker Chuck Mahron eloquently laid out the case that safe speeds are determined more by design than by individual attitudes of people driving. Chuck’s organization, Strong Towns, even has an Action Guide on how to improve a dangerous street in 24 hours or less.
Want to improve roadway safety in your community? Start by using the Safe System approach and designing roads to inform safe vehicle speeds.
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UTA Needs Your Input!
UTA has a survey running and they want to hear your thoughts.
The Five-Year Service Plan survey will help guide how transit services will improve, adapt and change over the coming five years. This survey closes on November 20th.
Your answers will help UTA understand how transit is used today, what could make it more useful and who is riding (or not riding) today. Take a moment share your thoughts!
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Workshop Series: Feasibility of UAV Vertiport Land Use and Location Planning
You are invited to participate in this workshop series to explore the future of Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS) in Utah. UAS encompasses terms like Urban Air Mobility, UAV, drones for package delivery, and other autonomous small aircraft. The workshop series is part of a new project led by Utah State University and funded by UDOT. The purpose of the workshop series is to identify and create a shared community planning process to identify feasible vertiports (mini-hubs for UAS) locations. At the end of this workshop series, the Utah State team will deliver a first-ever guidebook, including mapping data, to UDOT for distribution across the state. In order to make this work, we need you! Please consider joining community leaders, planners, engineers, and others involved in land and transportation planning to help inform this guidebook - this is new territory for most communities and industry is moving fast!
The workshop will be led by Dr. Brent Chamberlain and graduate students from the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at Utah State, together with support from UDOT, WFRC, and Flight Level Engineering. Our plan is to host the first workshop in the next few weeks. Please visit the website below for more details and to sign up.
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