Dear UDOT
Dear Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT),
Pioneer Crossing is finished and it’s a wonderful road. I really have enjoyed how much time it has taken off my drive from Saratoga Springs to American Fork. I really love that I can avoid Lehi Main Street most of the time. It’s wonderful, really.
However, I think the Pioneer Crossing signs are a little much.
There are a number of these signs along the roadway announcing that you have turned onto Pioneer Crossing (normal street signs weren’t enough?) and signs like this announcing that you entered Lehi City and signs announcing that you entered Saratoga Springs.
I’ll accept the signs announcing that you have changed cities. Cities often have nice signs saying “welcome to our awesome city” or “thanks for coming, come back soon.” But the signs to announce that you turned onto a road… too far.
Government spending and budgeting is a tricky business that I won’t claim to understand at all (maybe I should have done a little bit more research before writing this post–what kind of a journalism graduate am I?). It seems though, at a time when there are a lot of budget cuts in many states across the county, the money from these signs could have been better spent elsewhere.
I don’t know how much each one of the signs cost, but depending on how much it cost, the money could have gone somewhere else (public schools, perhaps). To me, the signs just seem silly and useless. Everyone knows they are on Pioneer Crossing and if they don’t know, they can look at one of the little green signs that every other road uses to identify itself.
So, by way of sandwhiching my complaint with two nice comments before and after … UDOT, I really enjoy your current website with all the interactive maps and 3D information about how projects are going to look once they are completed. It is a really nice feature, especially with all the MANY projects going on in the places I regularly drive. Check out their cool video of the new road going from I-15 to Highland, it should be pretty nice when it is completed: http://www.udot.utah.gov/sr92/. You can also view information about the changes to I-15 and Geneva Road.
Thank you, UDOT, for your nice roads and hard work, but next time, save us all a little money and don’t invest in silly signs.






you said it