Almost seven months overdue, Utah lawmakers want S.R. 92 project to wrap up

Utah’s S.R. 92 project should have been completed in late 2011, but traffic cones are still visible. Now the state legislature is telling the Utah DOT to speed up this prolonged work zone.

Rep. Craig Frank said in a Utah Transportation Interim Committee meeting that the highway agency needs to “put the screws on them.” Randy Park, UDOT’s project development director, responded by assuring lawmakers everything was being done to get the project moving. The contractor—a Flatiron/Harper joint venture—has been fined $15,000 a day since Oct. 21, and so far $3.12 million has been deducted from monthly billings to the contractor.

Park said the project has been plagued with problems “everywhere from pavement to drainage systems to bridge structures,” he told The Salt Lake Tribune.

The main section of S.R. 92 is open to traffic, but express lanes, which bypass traffic signals, remain closed.

“I drove on that road on my way into the Capitol today. They are moving cones around to make it look like they are still working on the road, but that’s all,” said Frank. “I’m also concerned about the design-build system that they’ve created there, too. It’s kind of an odd design. We’re all waiting for the population to fill in around it so we can know what they are trying to do. We’re confused.”

Park, however, told the committee that the final product would be top notch.

“The public will get exactly what they paid for,” he said.