CEDAR CITY, Utah — Like the traffic in Cedar City, the conversation over a planned Utah Department of Transportation project continues among business owners, customers and city council.
Cedar City and UDOT are trying to meet in the middle when it comes to plans for a new median.
"Hopefully, we can reach a happy medium with this - no pun intended," said City Council member Robert Cox.
A city council member and a local business owner are not happy about what lies ahead for Royal Hunte Drive, where UDOT wants to put a median.
Businesses on both sides are concerned it could make it harder for people to get to those businesses. UDOT claims it's a safety issue as it could be hard to see around other vehicles turning across traffic here.
UDOT spokesperson Kevin Kitchen believes the median should improve safety.
"It allows us storage space for those left turns it gives us the ability to prevent more crashes and channel pedestrians to the right place as well," Kitchen said.
But Eric Jenkins is particularly concerned about getting delivers and losing customers at his gas station.
"We get some I-15 traffic but a lot of our traffic comes off this lay hill and that's our concern with the big cement median they wanna put up us and the other businesses it will eliminate a lot of our business," said Jenkins, who owns a gas station near the road.
"Make it really inconvenient to get into a convenient store," said Jenkins.
UDOT says the planned median is a piece of a years-long, $132 million replacement interchange project in Cedar Cities South End. At this point, they claim changes to the design would set them back.
"UDOT says that if they move it back five or ten feet to make the turn more accessible to these big tanker with a pup that they'd have to redo the environmental study and all that," said Cox.
Those opposed to the plans point to what they say is lack of info, inconsistent communication and business impact concerns.
"I think our process has been standard but maybe even above standard quite frankly we've been on this for a couple years had an environmental study we put out for alternatives the city has been aware of this the whole way through," said Kitchen.
UDOT understands city and business owner concerns and believe they've addressed them, and are planning to move forward with construction in the spring.
The council member told me they may have to wait until the median project is completed to consider making adjustments meanwhile
UDOT tells me they're in the bidding phase of the project.