WEBER COUNTY, Utah — Neighbors along 12th Street in the western part of Weber County are worried about some intersections in a growing area.
ReNae Thompson, who has lived in the area for eight years, has concerns about multiple intersections from 1900 West to 4700 West along 12th Street, which is also State Route 39.
"When we’re coming this way to make a right-hand turn, people are just, they’re right on your tail, they’re honking at you, because you’re going too slow to go around the corner,” she said. “If there’s nothing in the left-hand lane, they'll fly right by you in the left-hand lane, which is going to cause a head-on collision if there’s somebody in the other turn lane. It’s just a nightmare."
Thompson and her husband have eight kids. Whenever she hears sirens nearby, she fears the worst.
"If we hear something's right here, we start calling kids to make sure they are not right here,” Thompson said.
She said her son-in-law was in a crash here at 12th Street and 3500 West just a few weeks ago, and she doesn’t want to see anyone else get hurt.
"I would really like to see a light here, and it widened, and turn lanes,” Thompson said.
She's also worried that with more housing and the inland port nearby, traffic will get even worse in the area.
"The road's just not big enough for as big as they’re expanding," she said.
After Thompson shared her concerns with FOX 13 News, we took her thoughts to the Utah Department of Transportation, since that is a state road.
"It's still kind of a rural road, rural conditions, but again, the growth is happening pretty fast, at a rapid rate, so there are some things that we're looking at into the future,” said Mitch Shaw, a spokesperson for UDOT.
He said they are looking at this area and do have plans to improve the intersection at 3500 West, along with that whole stretch from the Weber River to 4700 West.
"We have a project scheduled hopefully for next year where we are going to widen that road and ... add some new shoulders, and then we're going to add like a center left turn lane, like a middle turn lane throughout that whole length, so that'll take care of a lot of the backing issues that we see when people are trying to make a left handed turn,” said Shaw.
"I hope they work on something to fix the issue and not just push it to the side till somebody dies,” Thompson added.
