The Utah Department of Transportation's mission is "Quality Transportation Today, Better Transportation Tomorrow." The department recognizes that good transportation leads to economic prosperity and a better quality of life.
To achieve these ends, the department strives for four strategic goals:
- Preserve Infrastructure;
- Optimize Mobility;
- Zero Fatalities; and
- Strengthen the Economy.
The Utah Department of Transportation is responsible for over 5,800 miles of highways - 13% of the state's total highway road system of over 44,000 miles. However, 67% of the total annual travel is on these roads. This responsibility includes snow removal, signage, bridges, repairs, building, and maintenance as well as the Traffic Operations Center with live camera coverage for monitoring road conditions, accidents, and safety.
The Utah Department of Transportation has offices throughout the state. The main office in the Calvin Rampton Building in Salt Lake City houses general administration, community relations, port of entry administration, labs, and vehicle maintenance. There are four region offices and three district offices from Ogden to Cedar City. Personnel in each region or district office oversee administration, construction, and maintenance of all state roads, highways, and freeways within their area.
During the 2015 General Session, the Legislature appropriated for Fiscal Year 2016, $1,539,776,000 from all sources for Transportation. This is a 27.2 percent reduction from Fiscal Year 2015 revised estimated amounts from all sources. The total includes $0 from the General/Education Funds, a reduction of 100 percent from revised Fiscal Year 2015 estimates.
In addition to statewide compensation and internal service fund cost increases, the following appropriation adjustments were made during the 2015 General Session:
2014 Bridge System Performance Goal:
- Have no more than 10 percent of the bridge system rated in "poor" condition and have action plans in place to repair or replace each bridge when needed.
The 2013 performance goal was the same and was met.
2014 Preservation and Rehabilitation Performance Goal:
- Through UDOT's efforts, the ride quality is in good or fair condition on 99 percent of the Interstates, 96 percent of Level 1 roadways and 84 percent of Level 2 roadways.
2013 performance goals were met on interstate highways. Level 2 highways performance was less than the 84 percent goal. As part of its preservation and rehabilitation efforts, UDOT spent $200 million taking care of 5,840 miles of state highways.
2014 Snow and Ice Removal Performance Goal:
- UDOT's target grade for state maintained roads is an A-.
2013 Accomplishment:
- UDOT achieved a performance goal of B+ for fiscal year 2013. The snow and ice removal budget for FY 2013 was $23.3 million.
2013 Traveler Information Performance Goals:
- Improve the UDOT Traffic website and mobile application to include personalization.
- Implement the Citizen Reporter Program statewide and recruit 200 citizen reporters.
- Add automation to the UDOT Traffic Twitter feed to increase efficiency.
- Increase the number of downloads of the UDOT Traffic Mobile App to 250,000.
2013 Accomplishments:
- Created and implemented the Travelwise Alert function on the UDOT website and mobile application, including push notifications on the mobile application.
- Successfully deployed and pilot-tested the Citizen Reporter Program during winter 2012 - 2013. The Citizen Reporter Program will improve the quality of road weather information disseminated to the public, especially in rural areas.
- Created and deployed the Little Cottonwood Canyon Communications Tool to unify the collection and dissemination of traveler and safety information among all stakeholders in Little Cottonwood Canyon.
- The UDOT Traffic Mobile application reached 190,000 downloads at the end of FY 2013.
2014 Express Lanes Performance Goals:
- Operate the Express Lanes to maintain at least a 55 mph speed 90 percent of the time.
- Manage Express Lanes usage so as to shift at least 500 vehicles in the peak hour from the general purpose lanes to the Express Lanes while maintaining at least 55 mph speed 90 percent of the time.
2013 Accomplishments:
- Implemented in-house maintenance of the Express Lanes System.
- Met all performance goals for speed and volume in the Express Lane.
2014 Traffic Signal Coordination Performance Goals:
- Expand the implementation of real-time performance measurement.
- Use real-time performance measurement to identify corridors in need of timing improvements.
- Implement improved timing and document the results with "before and after" studies using real-time performance measures.
- Implement a real-time reporting tool for traffic signal operations that measures the quality of signal coordination along a corridor, and aggregates signal operations for multiple corridors.
2013 Accomplishments:
- Implemented real-time performance measurement for traffic signal operations. Performance measurement is functional at 800 of UDOT's 1,150 traffic signals statewide (70%).
- Optimized signals along 10 corridors in Regions 1, 2, 3, and 4.
- Performed traffic signal preventative maintenance according to the newly established schedule.
2013 Zero Fatalities Performance Goals:
- Continue to increase public awareness of safety issues.
- Forge new partnerships with safety organizations across the state.
- Implement Zero Fatalities Parent Class for Driver's Education courses statewide with the Department of Education.
2012 Accomplishments:
- Overall traffic fatalities were down 4% to 243, the lowest figure in 37 years.
The Utah Department of Transportation is governed by the Transportation Code, Title 72 of the Utah Code.
- UCA 72-01 Department of Transportation Administration
- UCA 72-02 Transportation Finances
- UCA 72-03 Highway Jurisdiction and Classification
- UCA 72-04 Designation of State Highways
- UCA 72-05 Rights-of-Way
- UCA 72-06 Construction, Maintenance, and Operations
- UCA 72-07 Protection of Highways
- UCA 72-08 Pedestrian Safety and Facilities Act
- UCA 72-09 Motor Carrier Safety Act
- UCA 72-10 Aeronautics
- UCA 72-11 Passenger Ropeway Systems
- UCA 72-12 Travel Reduction
COBI contains unaudited data as presented to the Legislature by state agencies at the time of publication. For audited financial data see the State of Utah's Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports.