A Legacy of Lunacy

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A tank being transported on some kind of super double truck called a "vessel" dumped its load on I-15 leaving rush hour traffic open to only 1 of its 3 north bound lanes. The distinction this length of one of our nation's longest freeways is, it is the only freeway going north out of Salt Lake City. This didn't have to be so... The Legacy Highway was first proposed in 1996 to reduce the congestion of I-15. In the mid 90s, congestion was so bad that when I lived in Ogden and worked in Salt Lake, it only took me 15 minutes longer to go through Emigration and Weber canyons to get home. To put that in perspective, Ogden is 38 miles from Salt Lake via 1-15. The trip through the canyons is 106. So, another north-south freeway through Nothern Utah would make sense... to those with a brain. In 2004, the first portion of the highway was started. Contractors began building the roadway, and continued until lawsuits by Rocky Anderson, the ACLU, Robert Redford, the Sierra Club and other eco-extortionists convinced a judicial activist judge that it should be stopped. Of course, the braindead waste of a lump on the bench only included a cease and desist on the construction, not the fleecing of taxpayers, so the full amount of the contract had to be paid anyway. (So far it has been paid for 3 times.. maybe more). The Frontrunner (a commutor train system running from Salt Lake to Ogden) probably was a good alternative for commuters who got off work after the accident hit the news, but for the vast majority of northbound commuters, by the time they heard about it, it was too late. Of course, none of it would matter to the lame brained ex-mayor of Salt Lake City. He openly resented commuters coming into his city in the first place. While he welcomed illegal aliens with open arms, he often suggested that Salt Lake City would be better off if Utahns would work and shop in their own cities instead of his own little kindom. An attitude whose results can be seen with all the closed down malls, shopping centers and the businesses that chose not to continue paying tribute so Count Rocky. As we crawled along the I-15 Parking Lot, I couldn't help but wonder what routes the Salt Lake City... or even Salt Lake County, have designated as disaster evacuation routes. Like many cities in the post Katrina US, Salt Lake has chosen to keep that kind of information to themselves. I guess they figure there will be plenty of time to inform everyone of that information after the disaster strikes. If a simple load dumping was enough of an emergency to overwhelm the county's ability to respond and recovery, what would an actual disaster do to them? Of course, this area is known for its penchant for personal emergency preparedness, so maybe the government just doesn't see a need. Just think, completing the Legacy Highway on schedule wouldn't have prevented this accident, nor would it have made Rocky Anderson a good mayor... but it would have prevented thousands of vehicles from spewing untolled pounds of CO2 into the air for hours on end. Oops, another example of an "earth friendly" policy contributing instead of preventing pollution. Do anyone's policies pollute, litter and contribute to the destruction of our planet more than the lies of the eco freaks and extortion groups?