| Joint
Private, Public Effort Gives Utah 1st Toll Road
BY
BRANDON LOOMIS
THE SALT LAKE
TRIBUNE
WASHINGTON
TERRACE -- Thirty years of lobbying state road builders
couldn't get Ogden's south side a new freeway access
until a private landowner put up $5 million to get the
job done.
The result: Utah's
first toll road, a $10 million public-private spur from
Adams Avenue to Interstate 84 financed largely by the
landowners and businesses that will benefit most. The
Adams Avenue Turnpike, a one-mile link across Doug
Stephens' ranch, is scheduled to open in December with
an anticipated toll of about 75 cents.
It will not be a state road, but
Utah officials will be watching closely to see if such
partnerships can solve transportation problems more
cost-effectively than the traditional pattern of using
tax dollars to open new areas to private development.
"It demonstrates that the
[toll-road] idea may have value in a number of
applications, but it will be in this kind of
partnership," Gov. Mike Leavitt said Tuesday. "I don't
anticipate us moving to state-owned toll roads anytime
soon." 
Youth
Camp Won't Be A Part of 2002 Games
BY
MIKE GORRELL
THE SALT LAKE
TRIBUNE
An
international youth camp will not be part of the Salt
Lake City Olympics.
But in
agreeing to Salt Lake Organizing Committee President
Mitt Romney's appeal to dispense with the traditional
camp, IOC officials said they hope this waiver is a
one-time deal.
"We made clear
this is an exceptional decision and does not set a
precedent," International Olympic Committee spokesman
Franklin Servan-Schreiber said following an IOC
Executive Board meeting Tuesday in Lausanne,
Switzerland.
He added: "We regret
there will be no youth camp, but we are very supportive
of Mitt's efforts. We are happy to help, if he thinks
this can help him. But in response to explicit and
repeated requests from Mitt, and to help him organize
great Games in Salt Lake, we are willing to take this
special exception."
Romney had
argued a youth camp, conducted simultaneously with the
2002 Winter Games and involving perhaps 200 young people
from 80 countries, would be a drain on SLOC's limited
resources. |
