IVINS — A plan to improve Old Dixie Highway 91 in Ivins with additional lanes, roundabouts and trails continues to gain monetary momentum in Ivins.
Last week, the Ivins City Council unanimously authorized an additional $2.092 million toward the project. Of that, $2 million is coming from a federal government earmark to Ivins that has to be used on the project.
The city already had committed $1,716,000 to the project in its 2021 budget.
The price tag initially was alarming to Ivins City Council member Mike Scott. But he said those fears were swayed by it coming almost entirely from federal dollars and also improvements that would add to the safety of a stretch of highway that is used as an alternate way into Arizona from Interstate 15.
“Most of the money we’re approving has to be spent on roads anyway,” Scott said. “Roundabouts, road improvements will improve safety. That calmed me down.”
Thanks to inflation, Ivins Public Works Director Chuck Gillette said the overall cost that Ivins is responsible for on the project has gone from $3.4 million to $3.8 million. The lion’s share of the remaining funds for the $8.9 million project has been committed by the Dixie Metropolitan Planning Organization and the Utah Department of Transportation.
But Ivins council member Lance Anderson said this is the time to build a project that will handle both the needs of Ivins and Southern Utah while the area remains mostly undeveloped without the need for using such avenues as eminent domain.
“It would cost many more millions later,” Anderson said.
The initial aim of the project is to widen the highway and resurface it with wider shoulders, roundabouts and turn lanes. There also will be the addition of bike lanes and trails. However, Gillette and city leaders also are talking about one more earmark of around $500,000 that would turn the project into a wider five-lane highway.
The first phase of the project, expected to start either late this year or in early 2023, will be from the corners of Old Dixie Highway 91 with 200 East to Kwavasa Drive and include new roundabouts at Kwavasa and 400 East. The second phase will extend further out to Fire Lake Park and the Ivins Reservoir.
Gillette cited how the seemingly endless construction and traffic delays on the Arizona stretch of I-15 in and after the Virgin River Gorge have built a lot of wear and tear on the highway in Ivins that is two lanes without shoulders or many formal turn lanes.
“When there’s a problem on the freeway, Google brings people through here, Gillette said.
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