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Utahns for Better Transportation
c/o FRIENDS of Great Salt Lake
Box 2655
Salt Lake City, Utah 84110-2655
www.utahnsforbettertransportation.org

July 30, 2003

Dear UBET Friend,

We are writing with the latest news on our continuing effort to establish a "Transit 1st" policy for new transportation capacity investments along the Wasatch Front. We also are asking you to once again open your wallets and consider a generous donation to our ongoing cause. Here’s why:

We last wrote to you in April, encouraging you to attend a public meeting sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps). The two agencies invited public input on a new set of environmental studies to determine the best combination and timing of transportation investments in south Davis County. The studies were required by the 10^th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling on Sept. 16, 2002 that found the initial Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for this first leg of the proposed Legacy Highway inadequate on significant issues.

Since April, we have had several meetings with the agencies involved, i.e. FHWA, the Corps, and UDOT, and have had the good fortune to involve internationally respected transportation planner Robert Cervero on our behalf. Cervero is an expert on integrated transit system development and is providing expert opinion on issues of "sequencing and integration."

UBET has also engaged Robert L. Morris, an experienced transportation planner and traffic engineer from Washington, D.C. We are asking him to review the feasibility of an alternative vehicular route through south Davis County using a combination of an "enhanced" Redwood Road north of I-215 linked to what would be a new connector road to Parish Lane in Centerville. This would be tied to improved frontage roads from Centerville to Farmington.

UBET is also working with local wildlife experts that include Ty Harrison and Don Paul to review the scope of issues and methodology used to analyze the impacts of the highway on wildlife.

Since we first initiated this legal challenge to the FEIS of the proposed Legacy Highway in November 2000 we have been the recipient of your generosity. Your past financial contribution to this effort has made it possible for us to pay our bills. (Even though our attorneys gave us a great rate, we still had significant expenses). Now, to continue in this critical phase, we need to raise an additional $30,000 to pay for our experts over the next six months. This would include their consulting fees and costs for lodging and travel to and from Salt Lake City.

If you have received this letter, you are one of the over 300 people who has donated more than $150,000 to this effort, making it possible for us to successfully challenge the inadequate analysis of alternatives in the original FEIS for the proposed Legacy Parkway. If each of you sent in $100, we’d have more than our goal. But any amount would be greatly appreciated.

Please consider another contribution and thank you for being our partners in this tireless effort to ensure that we develop a balanced transportation system for our future along the Wasatch Front.

Because UBET is a coalition and not an incorporated entity checks should me made payable to FRIENDS of Great Salt Lake and mailed to PO Box 2655, SLC, UT 84110-2655. FRIENDS is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation and donations are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.

Yours for healthy wetlands and more transportation choices,

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