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Valley View Highway Improvement Plans Released

Work to improve northern Utah’s Valley View Highway is expected to begin in two years. Details about plans to widen and create more passing lanes along a heavily traveled road leading from Logan to Petersboro have been released.

Residents who live in Cache County but work in Box Elder County know the commute can be risky.

“It gets foggy, traffic is at close quarters, traveling at high speeds, and during the morning and afternoon peak travel times there are a lot of vehicles out there,” said Vic Sounders, UDOT Region One spokesperson.  

Saunders is very familiar with what has been a near eight-year process to decide how to reduce the potential for accidents along State Route 30 between State Road 252, or 1000 West in Logan, and State Road 23 in Petersboro.

“Agriculture, commuters, environmentalists, government…everybody has weighed in on this study,” he said. “There’s been a lot of comment.”

A decision by the state agency that oversees transportation means the traffic, bike and pedestrian needs along a 6.3 mile stretch of the highway should meet the projected needs for the next 50 years according to Saunders, who says the plan takes into consideration the impacts of a highway lane expansions on the area's wetlands.

"And the findings that were given were that we go with the preferred alternative, a three-lane alternating turn lane out across the west marsh, with the four-lane median alignment closer to Logan,” Saunders said.   

The plan includes a 14-foot medium with a center barrier and 12-foot shoulders. Construction will begin in 2020 with funding for the estimated $45 million project included in a statewide $1 billion infrastructure bond approved by the Utah Legislature in 2017.

At 14-years-old, Kerry began working as a reporter for KVEL “The Hot One” in Vernal, Utah. Her radio news interests led her to Logan where she became news director for KBLQ while attending Utah State University. She graduated USU with a degree in Broadcast Journalism and spent the next few years working for Utah Public Radio. Leaving UPR in 1993 she spent the next 14 years as the full time mother of four boys before returning in 2007. Kerry and her husband Boyd reside in Nibley.