FARMINGTON -- Meeting with Utah Department of Transportation representatives, area legislators and members of the general public, Farmington City officials took part in a difficult discussion on Legacy North corridor preservation last week. The meeting was summarized Wednesday night before members of city council by city manager Max Forbush, who noted the get-together focused on the confluence of Legacy South and its northerly extension. At times, it appeared, the discussion wove a web as tangled as descriptions of the "tie-in" itself. For its part, UDOT's contingent was fearful of any meeting place in the area south of Glover's Lane. There are a lot of wetlands in that vicinity, always a challenge to construction.

Some legislators talked of widening the Legacy North corridor to accommodate three traffic lanes in each direction. But Farmington's folks were not happy with such a wide footprint extending into their community.

Linking north and south Legacy via I-15 was also discussed, though drawings of one proposal envisioned a "spaghetti bowl" rivaling that near 2100 South in Salt Lake County and costing hundreds of millions to build.

"We came up with the position of looking at the UTA corridor, or the former D&RG railroad easement," said Forbush. "We thought UDOT might be able to swing one set of lanes along it."

The other two lanes, the northbound set, would be directed to a separate route along I-15. The north and southbound lanes would then re-assume their parallel courses south of Glover's Lane. The problem is, Forbush explained, UTA has previously ruled its right-of-way off limits to anything but trails or rails.

"But, there was someone there from UDOT who thought we could work around that," he said, "if we didn't take the UTA corridor south of Glover's Lane."

As the meeting broke up, Forbush reported, UDOT took the position of studying the UTA corridor.

Farmington, he recalled, had proposed a link-up west of I-15 near Shepard Lane. Legacy, as it proceeds north, would tie into I-15 at the Park Lane interchange.

The northbound lanes would then use a fly-over ramp to cross I-15 to the link-up point. The southbound lanes would run from the tie-in on a road west of I-15 to the Park Lane interchange.

bmickelson@davisclipper.com