Dear Dickheads,
I think its about time we addressed the pollution levels in Utah and along the Wasatch Front by putting the governor and mayors up to confronting a serious health problem that they continue to dance around with words instead of actions.

Why is it so impossible for our legislators to come up with a co-operative agreement between the State, County and Cities that will synchronize state county and local highway and road traffic signals to allow traffic to flow instead of lights stopping traffic when there is no cross-traffic.

The simplest solution is to increase the frequency of the stop and go lights or to put sensors on that change the lights when there is no traffic or little traffic The majority of the lights now stop up to 40 cars for only one or two cross traffic cars so people are sitting there wasting gas and time and creating pollution. We have this same problem with the cross traffic and the light rail.
Cities throughout the country seem to be able to solve their traffic signaling dilemmas but we cant. It could also be beneficial if UTA offered free passage on red days or on yellow days to encourage usage of TRAX and Front-Runner.

Also Trax needs to coordinate their train signals in dense traffic areas to allow autos to go when there are no trains or by using shorter distance sensors of the approaching train so that stopped traffic can move instead of sitting, idling.

How much longer can we allow our representatives to skirt the reality?
Please help me to help them find a solution.

A concerned Citizen,
Cordell Taylor

Dear Cordell,
We totally agree with you. Now that spring has sprung, it’s a lot easier to forget about the pollution that faces our city, especially since the toxic cloud isn’t quite so visible above the downtown skyline. It’s pretty ridiculous that the electronic signs hovering over the freeway said, “For better air quality, reduce travel tomorrow.” They might as well have said, “Well, you fucked up by letting your mega-SUV spew poisonous gas into the air today … Maybe take it easy tomorrow, if you wanna.” The fact that the pollution problem was swept entirely under the rug during Sundance and Slamdance last January shows that the Powers That Be know there’s a problem, but since there isn’t an easy solution, they don’t want to deal with it. A group of doctors called Utah Physicians for Healthy Environment even delivered a petition to Governor Herbert declaring a health emergency and asking him to lower the speed limit, ban wood burning, make mass transit free and reduce industrial activities. As participants in a democracy, it is our duty to contact our legislators and tell them that we would really prefer not to die, if entirely possible. Visit utah.gov to find out who represents you, and from there you can call and email them and voice your concerns. Just because the sun is shining and birds are trying to have sex with bees (or such is our understanding), the pollution problem hasn’t really gone away.
xoxo, SLUG