Davis officials and others can breathe a sigh of relief that the Legacy Parkway will now be exempt from a bill which would allow billboards on scenic byways.

On Thursday, Rep. Christopher N. Herrod, R-Provo introduced a substitute HB 272, which specifically exempts the Legacy Parkway from the bill.

In 2002, Legacy Parkway was given the Scenic Byway designation from the State of Utah. Now, the state is applying for federal scenic byway status, something officials feared would be jeopardized by Herrod’s bill.

That’s good news to Woods Cross City Administrator Gary Uresk, who chairs the Legacy Parkway Scenic Byway Committee. The bill, he said, still has a long way to go, since the House of Representatives hasn’t voted on it yet. Once House members have voted on it, it still has to be considered by the Senate.

HB272 would allow areas of scenic byways in Utah to be “segmented” or removed from byway designation if a piece of property adjoining the road is zoned commercial, industrial or is unzoned. Those segments would then be opened for billboards, but the substitute bill exempts the 14-mile stretch of Legacy.

Uresk said the bill was written with a specific byway in mind: the Dinosaur Diamond Scenic Byway, a 512-mile loop in eastern Utah and western Colorado. In Utah, the Dinosaur Diamond travels through Vernal, Roosevelt, Duchesne, Price and Green River.

To be designated as a National Scenic Byway, a road must possess at least one of six intrinsic qualities (historic, cultural, natural, scenic, recreational, archaeological), and be nationally and regionally significant, according to a federal byways website. The designation was first used in 1996, and there are now 125 scenic byways in 44 states.

mwilliams@davisclipper.com