Free Republic

When NFL players took a knee during the National Anthem in 2016, a tradition was born at Rainbow Oaks Restaurant. Owners Duke and Jonell Maples, who remodeled and reopened the restaurant in 2009, decided to start playing the National Anthem at noon, seven days a week. "It was my way of waving my middle finger at the NFL," said the retired Marine. The restaurant is filled with patriotic memorabilia and American flags. A Marine Corps flag flies under the American flag atop the restaurant and inside, it's obvious the clientele has support for and by the military and law enforcement....

The Idaho Transportation Department is gearing up to begin improvements to the “Flying Y” interchange system that connects Interstates 86 and 15 located on the Pocatello-Chubbuck border. ITD is currently in the design phase of the project, which will involve roadway, ramp and bridge upgrades at the junction of Interstate 86 and Interstate 15, and building a new separated pedestrian and bicycle path. Construction on the project is slated to begin in mid-2022 and conclude in 2025, ITD says. “This project aims to improve safety, mobility and economic opportunity by upgrading the roadway to current engineering standards, replacing the aging...

FARMINGTON — In terms of the sheer magnitude of work that will be taking place, Northern Utah’s 2021 road construction season will be unlike any other. Sometime this spring, the Utah Department of Transportation will be working simultaneously on three highway projects in Weber and Davis counties, worth a combined $1.4 billion. Two of the projects — the $163 million Interstate 15 Express Lanes work and the $493 million U.S. 89 reconstruction — are being carried over from 2020. The third, and most expensive, is the $750 million West Davis Corridor. To put the 2021 dollar value in perspective, UDOT...

A Utah Highway Patrol officer was shocked to find a five-year-old boy behind the wheel of a car during a traffic stop

Leaders who spoke during a Friday morning ribbon-cutting ceremony to open a new Interstate 15 interchange touted the $31 million project as a prime example of what can be accomplished when entities cooperate. The Northgate interchange opened to the public a few hours after the ceremony concluded, with Pocatello Mayor Brian Blad, Chubbuck Mayor Kevin England and members of the Bannock County Commission all driving their cars across the bridge as the official first users. The interchange is located north of both the Pocatello Creek Road exit and I-15’s “flying Y” with Interstate 86. The interchange was first added to...

Legacy Parkway in Davis County is a different sort of freeway. It bans trucks. The speed limit is just 55 mph. Its mere two lanes in each direction have rubberized pavement to dampen sound — all designed to help adjacent wetlands and wildlife. But that could change dramatically in a little more than a year, on Jan. 1, 2020. That is when a 15-year deal expires, initially drawn up to end lawsuits by environmental groups against the highway. The truck ban will disappear that day, and the state is then free to raise the speed limit or look at widening...

The Utah Transportation Commission on Friday approved spending an extra $38 million to cover rising costs for two major upcoming highway projects — on Interstate 15 and Bangerter Highway in Salt Lake County. The increased expenses are caused in part by rising prices to buy and demolish homes and businesses to clear new rights of way. That includes an extra $23 million for a project to convert three more intersections on Bangerter Highway into freeway-like interchanges at 6200 South, 10400 South and 12600 South. Construction on those projects is scheduled to begin in 2020, but purchasing the needed rights of...

Most newer concrete beams that hold up Utah highway bridges are around 145 feet long. But the Utah Department of Transportation is about to place six that are 40 percent longer — 203 feet — to help widen Interstate 15 in Lehi. They are longer than the iconic Cinderella’s castle in Walt Disney World (189 feet) is high, or the leaning tower of Pisa (185 feet). They also will be the third-longest single-component beams in the United States, slightly shorter than two in Orlando, Fla., and Seattle, said Lee Wegner, with Forterra Structural Precast, the West Valley City company that...

Donald Trump’s first budget recommendations help pay for a bigger military with lower expenditures for other promised programs. His recommendations for infrastructure disappointed local officials across the nation, and his plan to revive Nevada’s Yucca Mountain also received limited funds. Trump’s plan calls for $1.5 trillion in infrastructure projects, with just $200 billion supplied by the federal government. It was widely assumed, including in conservative circles, that the program would force local governments to raise taxes. In the Unification Church publication Washington Times, economist Peter Morici wrote, President Trump’s infrastructure plan puts a heavy burden on the states and will...

A new detection system to help prevent wrong-way crashes will be part of an interchange under construction in the south Las Vegas Valley. There were 279 wrong-way driver crashes on Nevada’s freeway systems from 2005 to 2015, according to the Nevada Department of Transportation. They resulted in 41 fatalities and 125 injuries. After researching ways to address the problem, NDOT determined a system using vehicle detection, cameras and red rectangular rapid-flashing beacons should be employed. To implement the system, NDOT requested and received permission from the Federal Highway Administration to experiment with the beacons. Permission was needed because red rapid...

The Northgate project that involves constructing an interchange on Interstate 15 north of Pocatello and is expected to trigger a landslide of development simultaneously took one step forward and another backward last week. The Pocatello City Council unanimously approved the annexation of nearly 300 acres of land north of East Chubbuck Road on Thursday, but the Idaho Transportation Department also learned the construction cost of the interchange alone has increased by about $4 million. There has been some speculation that the increased costs could negatively impact the project, but the ITD board is scheduled to meet on Thursday at its...

Early Thanksgiving travelers are expected to stuff Interstate 15 with heavy traffic and delays this week. The Utah Department of Transportation is predicting heavy delays — of up to 45 minutes — on Interstate 15 along the Wasatch Front during the evening commute on Wednesday, as many people head out of town or escape from work a bit early for the holiday. UDOT said its engineers expect a 25 percent increase in traffic on both Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, compared to a typical weekday commute of about 200,000 cars per day. It expects heavier than normal traffic on Tuesday from...

Local entities involved in the proposed Interstate 15 Siphon Road interchange signed off this week on plans to start construction on a project expected to dramatically increase the Pocatello area’s population and greatly improve the local economy. Those behind the effort to build the interchange say that with its construction, the area north of Pocatello and Chubbuck will see massive development in the future, including a technology park employing thousands of people, shopping centers, dozens of new neighborhoods, parks, trails and even new concert venues. But before such unheralded growth can occur, the interchange needs to be built. While the...

Everyone in America was planning for the solar eclipse on August 21, except, apparently, the Montana Department of Transportation. That day, a contractor hired by MDT had scheduled a fairly major road construction project to begin on Interstate 15 near the Clark Canyon Dam. As tens of thousands of people headed north from the path of the eclipse to get home Monday around 4:30 p.m., they encountered a miles-long traffic jam that slowed traffic to a bumper-to-bumper crawl for more than an hour for some drivers. The flow of traffic was not a problem on the northbound lane of I-15...

A swiftly moving brush fire in Southern California forced the closing of all lanes of a crowded freeway, stranded some motorists and spurred others to abandon their vehicles as flames engulfed roughly a dozen cars and trucks. Live video broadcast by a local CBS affiliate showed firefighters moving between empty vehicles on Interstate 15 in Cajon Pass, Calif., as motorists filed down the shoulder of the freeway in San Bernardino County. A black pillar of smoke rose into the sky as cars, pickup trucks, a tractor-trailer and a car carrier loaded with empty vehicles burned. The fire information line, to...

KSL News) – A tanker truck carrying some sort of explosive material overturned and exploded this afternoon on Highway 6, up Spanish Fork Canyon. It caught fire and exploded. Highway 6 is shut down in both directions and is expected to remain so for up to eight hours. The accident was reported about 1:30. It's about 10 miles up Spanish Fork Canyon, just east of the Thistle Fork Junction. Doug McCleve of the Utah Department of Public Safety confirmed there was an explosion and there were some injuries, including two burn victims. There's apparently a crater now in the middle...

<p>Some people can get really, really, really lost.</p> <p>A Utah state trooper pulled over a car traveling the wrong way on Interstate 15 near the town of Beaver early Wednesday morning, figuring he'd find just another drunk driver.</p> <p>Instead, he discovered a 49-year-old Whittier, Calif., man and his mother, who thought they were still in the Los Angeles area.</p>