city council and the community at large is really conservative though. Case in point: Mayor Curtis WANTED to use a small portion (something like 5%) of a transportation tax increase for bike infrastructure, but didn't push for it because he was worried about the uproar it would cause from residents who wouldn't want their "taxes to go up" for anything other than driving roads. Even though more people biking would make driving better (and road maintenance cheaper--a truly conservative approach!). In other words, the extreme conservatism of the community kind of shackled Curtis' abilities to be more progressive in city planning.

I live in Provo and we're now reaping the results from 30 years of ultra conservativism that did not invest in the future very well. Now everything is breaking and needs to be replaced at once and taxes/fees are jumping up a lot. It would have been smarter to just have incrementally taken care of problems along the way and invested in infrastructure as needed, but politicians get voted out for that kind of nonsense. So many residents here are "no new taxes ... ever!" no matter if the roof is collapsing on your kids' heads.

In any case, Utah residents need to realize that growth is going to happen and we might as well think progressively about what kind of community we want in 30 years when the population has doubled or whatever it will be! It'll be a lot cheaper to invest in that infrastructure now.