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Active transportation bills: SB195 mobility-review rules for Salt Lake City, HB290 defines bike-lane violations
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Summary
Committee members reviewed 2025 legislative outcomes affecting active-transportation planning: SB195 added a UDOT mobility-plan review requirement for Salt Lake City's highway-reduction projects with limited exceptions; HB290 created a moving violation and statutory definition for driving in designated bike lanes.
Miranda Jones Cox of the Wasatch Front Regional Council briefed the Active Transportation Committee on several bills from the 2025 Utah legislative session that affect active transportation and local planning.
Jones Cox said Senate Bill 195, a transportation omnibus bill, included a provision that affects Salt Lake City's ability to proceed with certain "highway reduction strategy" projects without a mobility-plan review by the Utah Department of Transportation. The provision defines highway-reduction strategies to include actions that permanently decrease motor-vehicle capacity or narrow lanes. Under the final language, projects that had been advertised on or before Feb. 25, 2025, or that received state funding before July 1, 2024, may proceed. Other projects within the defined study area must submit a mobility plan; UDOT has 60 days to review. The statute includes a two-year sunset for the additional review requirements, and the legislature directed a mobility and environmental-impact analysis for identified projects in the study area dating back to 2015.
Angela Price (Salt Lake City staff) told the committee the city learned of the provision shortly before it was introduced on the Senate floor, and that city staff worked with the bill sponsors, UDOT and WFRC to negotiate the final language. Price said the negotiated exceptions for advertised contracts and previously funded projects reduced the potential disruption; she noted the city will continue to coordinate with UDOT on mobility-plan reviews and expressed concern about preemption of municipal decision-making while emphasizing the city's continued focus on safety.
Becca Roe of Salt Lake City Transportation described typical highway-reduction strategies (often called road diets) as conversions that reduce travel lanes for motor vehicles and add bike lanes, turn lanes or bus lanes to improve safety and multimodal access. Roe said Salt Lake City expects to scope and submit projects to UDOT under the statute and that the city's process will seek to address safety and community concerns in the required reviews.
Jones Cox also highlighted a few other measures: House Bill 290, a bike-lane safety bill, added a statutory definition of "bike lane" and makes driving within or obstructing a designated bike lane a moving violation with enumerated exceptions (for example emergency vehicles). WFRC staff also noted a legislative citation urging greater integration of multimodal transportation and land-use planning and a failed bill that would have created a state bike-rack grant program.
Committee members discussed the practical impacts of the session's outcomes and the need for continued coordination among cities, MPOs and UDOT as jurisdictions scope projects, conduct mobility analyses and plan future active-transportation work.
