Green light for cycling scofflaws
Green light for cycling scofflaws?
It happens all the time at Salt Lake Valley’s stop signs, and often it irks the motorists idling patiently.
“Did you see that #$%&*@! bicyclist just blow through that stop sign?”
Actually, cycling advocates insist, there’s both a practical and a safety reason to let pedal pushers skirt the letter of the law. That’s why Rep. Carol Spackman Moss, D-Holladay, is crafting a bill to legalize what’s already happening.
“If there isn’t a car coming, the cyclist could go through,” Moss said.
Stop signs would become yields, but Moss envisions continuing a prohibition on running red lights.
Stop-as-yield is not a novel idea, and in fact is long-established law north of Utah’s border with Idaho. There, cyclists may even go through red lights after making a complete stop.
Holladay resident and recreational cyclist Dave O’Leary suggested the bill to Moss. Letting cyclists continue their momentum through a stop is little different than letting pedestrians and joggers continue when it’s safe, he said.
“Joggers don’t necessarily stop at stop signs,” he said. “They kind of look both ways and then they run.”
It’s safer for bikes to continue through stops than it is for cars to do so, O’Leary reasons. A bike’s speed approaching an intersection generally is slower, as is its acceleration into traffic.
Still, he frequently hears it from frustrated motorists who roll down their windows as they pass.
“I had
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one recently who was really irate, who said, ‘You cyclists always get your way,’ ” O’Leary recalled. “Then I watched as he slowed down at the next stop sign and drove right through.”
O’Leary and Moss figure a law codifying cyclists’ unique right of way might dampen the animosity as motorists recognize there’s a rule.
It works in Idaho and there’s been no noticeable backlash from motorists, said Josh Saak, a traffic-design engineer with the Ada County Highway District in Boise.
Treating stop signs as yields makes practical sense for cyclists because it takes work to regain momentum after a stop, he said. It’s also a safety enhancement because it allows cyclists to maintain visibility by staying out front of cars that might otherwise shield them, he said.
“I can’t think of anyone getting hit because of this [law],” he said.
Utah state Sen. Curtis Bramble, R-Provo, said he’s skeptical but will hear Moss out on the proposal. It wouldn’t seem to improve safety, he said, and he worries about liability conflicts.
“I’m thinking from the point of view of riding a bicycle,” Bramble said. “If it appears the intersection is clear because I didn’t see the automobile coming, does that mean it’s the automobile driver’s fault?”
Bramble himself was the victim of an accident while on a bicycle, and required physical therapy for broken vertebrae. “I see [bike-auto conflicts] from multiple perspectives,” he said. “I would approach it with an open mind.”
He said that would mean hearing from cyclists, the state police and former Salt Lake City Mayor Ted Wilson, a biking advocate with whom he struck a compromise to enact the law assuring Utah cyclists of a three-foot cushion from vehicles where practical.
Moss said she’ll speak to experts before sketching out the details of her bill for the upcoming legislative session. However it turns out, she said, she hopes it makes cycling in Utah more comfortable — something she says is economic development in a state that draws heavily on quality of life and tourism.
“We ought to be encouraging the use of bikes whether it’s for purely transportation use and going to work or for recreation,” she said.
Read MoreRepresentative Neil Hansen – Crazy Ideas That Just Might Work
Utah lawmakers throw budget ideas against the wall
Joe Pyrah – Daily Herald | Posted: Sunday, November 1, 2009 12:35 am
The numbers are fairly staggering: If the economy continues its race to the bottom, Utah is going to be at least $850 million short come next year.
With the federal credit card used up and low hanging fruit like increasing vehicle registration fees already picked, lawmakers are looking for ways to balance the $10 billion budget — as mandated by the state’s constitution.
On the table are tax increases on cigarettes and natural resources extracted by corporations, across-the-board cuts and whatever Gov. Gary Herbert’s secretive efficiency committee comes up with.
But those are predictable moves. Isn’t there something out there that’s a little crazy but just might work?
A sampling of Utah lawmakers who wouldn’t mind throwing these ideas against the wall to see what sticks:
John Dougall, R-Highland
• The state has explored the idea of year-round school for years. Dougall, a relentless fiscal conservative, says there may be as much as $150 million in savings by moving to the format. That’s after forking more than $150 million to increase the salaries of teachers willing to work 12 months a year instead of the traditional nine.
The money is saved by using the education system’s massive and expensive infrastructure for the entire year. Year-round school would reduce the number of teachers — if class sizes are kept the same — because fewer students would be in school at the same time. Of course, money savings aside, it would be massively disruptive as parents tried to figure out when they wanted their kids in school, teachers renegotiated contracts, and school officials decided who would be fired.
Rep. Neil Hansen, D-Ogden
• Lawmakers typically pick a dollar figure for departments to hit and let administrators decide where to cut. Hansen, the only Democrat north of Salt Lake City, says it’s time for some serious micromanagement. Lawmakers, he says, could probably find enough “frivolous money” to cover the entire $850 million shortfall if they had access to every detail of state departments. He’s talking about things like: magazine/newspaper subscriptions, funding for license plate covers promoting the state Web site, and perhaps most lucrative of all, funded positions that go unfilled.
He said there’s at least one department he’s aware of that has $300,000 tied up in positions that are currently empty and have been for some time.
“All too often, when we have these big, huge budgets, a lot of it goes unnoticed or unaccounted for,” he said.
• Of course, digging that deep into the guts of government would most likely mean extending the legislative session, which would take a constitutional change. Hansen says it’s worth exploring pushing the session from its traditional 45 days to 60 days or even, and this is really outside the box, 10 days at the beginning of each month. That would allow lawmakers to manage the budget on the fly instead of calling special sessions or waiting an entire year and then going back into the previous year’s budget to make painful changes.
A few others:
• Sen. Luz Robles, D-Salt Lake City, says a constituent recently suggested that if Utah can lease out its west desert for radioactive waste, why not build a federal prison out there? “I thought that was innovative and creative,” Robles says.
• Rep. Craig Frank, R-Pleasant Grove, is big on privatization. Why not corrections or the state mental hospital, he says. And a slightly disturbing suggestion: “Maybe doing a legislators calendar or something. We’ll start with Dougall in January.”
Rep. Christine Johnson stands firm against food tax increase
From the Deseret Morning News..
A plan to reinstate the full state sales tax on food received the endorsement of a tax advisory board Thursday and is on its way to the Legislature and governor’s office.
The idea to repeal tax cuts levied in the 2006 and 2007 legislative sessions that led to the current food tax rate of 1.75 percent has met with mixed reviews from both legislators, who are facing an $850 million budget shortfall in the coming session, and advocates for low-income Utahns who say an unprecedented number of residents are struggling to make ends meet in the dire economy. Raising the tax is estimated to bring some $145 million in new revenue.
Rep. Christine Johnson, D-Salt Lake, a commission member, is not among the supporters. She voted against the recommendation, saying the increased tax puts an unfair and unnecessary strain on the state’s disadvantaged.
“I find the whole proposal very disconcerting,” Johnson said. “I feel like it’s imperative that we look at other options, instead of targeting a population that will be unfairly bearing the burden.”
Read the Full Story Here;
http://www.utdemocrats.org/news/view/142512/?topic=14355
Legislature not likely to tinker with liquor laws next session
Legislature not likely to tinker with liquor laws next session
Licenses » New restaurants, bars might not be able to serve drinks.
By Dawn House
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 11/12/2009 02:06:09 PM MST
Utah lawmakers won’t likely be increasing the number of licenses that allow alcohol to be served at restaurants and clubs, despite warnings from state liquor officials that the number of permits is quickly running out.
That’s one of a number of reforms on the wish lists of tourism and hospitality officials that likely will go begging in the upcoming legislative session because elected officials are signaling they are done with altering liquor laws, at least for now.
There are a couple of reasons for the hiatus, which will probably last until the 2011 session. First, Gov. Gary Herbert is facing election next year.
Second, in the wake of a massive reform earlier this year that included abolishing private clubs, “there’s a fear that if there are more changes so soon, we would be retreating from our alcohol policy,” said Rep. Greg Hughes, R-Draper, who sponsored the big changes in the last session. “Ultimately there will be some changes in the next couple of years, but I don’t think you’ll see bills of any significance this next session.”
That means new alcohol licenses will continue to be in short supply and that another provision of the 2009 reforms that requires new restaurants to build separate alcohol preparation areas will remain in place. Economic development officials fear those two restrictions, and another that bans the sale of alcohol within 200 feet of a church, will stunt economic growth.
Hughes disputes a report by the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control that licenses for new restaurants and clubs “will shortly outstrip supply” under the quota system in which the number of permits is based on population. Even though only a few licenses remained the last time they were handed out in October, Hughes contends that more licenses will become available as the population grows or as restaurants and clubs give up existing permits.
Many in the hospitality industry had hoped that a new resort license would free up more permits from the state’s dwindling pool but its requirements have proven too restrictive.
Large hotels and resorts in Utah are taking up 77 additional liquor licenses that would be freed up if the facilities qualified for a single resort permit. This includes 47 additional restaurant permits and 30 bar licenses, more than what’s available in the existing pool. The state has 19 restaurant permits and three bar licenses remaining.
“It’s time for a change in the law that would allow one license for a large hotel or a resort,” said Sam Granato, chairman of the liquor control board and Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate. “It would free up more licenses, which could run out by the time the Legislature meets early next year.”
Granato reasons that action would be less complicated and politically sensitive than tackling the license-quota system.
“Considering a single license for hotels or resorts would give legislators the wiggle room they’re looking for to help our economy,” he said. “Otherwise, the quota system is going to continue to fester.”
Since the resort license became available in May, only the St. Regis Deer Crest Resort in Park City has been granted a permit. Among other qualifications, resorts must have a large hotel and units owned by individuals other than the resort owner to become eligible for the single permit.
The resort holding the most liquor licenses is Snowbird, with five restaurant and five bar permits. But Snowbird doesn’t qualify for a single resort license because, among other things, alcohol is served in more than one building.
“We look like a resort, we think we’re a resort and by most definitions you and I could agree on, we are a resort, but under the law we don’t qualify,” said Bret Johnson, food and beverage director at Snowbird.
Other resorts with more than a single permit include Alta with two restaurant and two bar permits, followed by The Canyons, with three restaurant and one bar; and Solitude, with one restaurant and two bars.
When the Amangiri Resort opened in southern Utah last month, owners snapped up three liquor licenses to serve alcohol to guests. The facility also doesn’t qualify for a single license because only ski resorts are eligible.
Melva Sine, president of the Utah Restaurant Association, said public demand — not the state’s “artificial” alcohol quotas — should dictate the number of liquor licenses. The primary business for restaurants is food, not alcohol, she added. Only 4 percent of all alcohol in the state is sold in restaurants.
dawn@sltrib.com
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