Opinion ID: 162578
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Consistency with the SLC Transportation Master Plan

Text: NEPA regulations require that: 67 To better integrate environmental impact statements into State or local planning processes, statements shall discuss any inconsistency of a proposed action with any approved State or local plan and laws ... [w]here an inconsistency exists, the statement should describe the extent to which the agency would reconcile its proposed action with the plan or law. 68 40 C.F.R. § 1506.2(d). The Appellants charge that the Agencies did not discuss the inconsistency between the SLC Transportation Master Plan and the Legacy Parkway and did not describe the extent to which the Agencies would reconcile the proposed action with the plan. See III Aplt.App. 829. The Appellants based their assertion of inconsistency on the fact that the SLC Transportation Master Plan indicated that the City had shifted priorities to mass transit and multiple forms of transportation and away from increasing road capacity and meeting the needs of the single-occupant automobile. Aplt. Br. at 56. 69 The Agencies reviewed and the FEIS describes eight different SLC transportation plans, including the SLC Transportation Master Plan of 1996. I Aplee. App. at 229; see also I Aplee. App. 451. Many of these plans anticipate an increase in travel demand in SLC, and some specifically recommend construction of a new north-south highway. Aplee. App. at 231. Furthermore, a map from the SLC Transportation Master Plan of 1996 shows a proposed West Davis Highway running north from SLC and located west of I-15. IV Aplee. App. at 1555. The Appellants have not cited any place in the SLC Transportation Master Plan where all new road construction was opposed. Shifting priorities and opposing any and all new construction are different things. Therefore, the EIS is not inadequate on this basis. We find that the FEIS's apparent conclusion that the Legacy Parkway project was not inconsistent with SLC's plans does not render the FEIS inadequate. 70