Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
PROVO -- Traffic is moving better on I-15 in Utah County, now that UDOT has re-opened the interchange at Center Street in Provo. It's been closed down for the past 90 days, because of the massive I-15 CORE project.
Traffic can now exit both northbound and southbound at on the newly built Center Street interchange.
You can easily get confused on the new interchange, at least at first, but it is a specialized fit for Center Street and is designed to help traffic move better, and businesses in Provo are thrilled.
Kassy Carr drives from Spanish Fork to work at the Downtown Salon on Center Street in Provo. For the past three months, she has had to take a detour, but now the Provo Center Street interchange is open again, getting to work is a breeze.
"I can get to work I won't have to leave home earlier, I can stay home more with my kids. With the weather changing too, it will be a lot nicer," Carr said.C
Next door at Modern Shoe, which has been in business since 1940, things seemed to get by just fine during the interchange closure.
"We're a specialty shop, so we do a lot of very unique things and I think people have fought the traffic to come and see us," said owner Tony Thomas.
The owner Thomas doesn't take the freeway to work, but sees the newly rebuilt interchange as another plus for downtown Provo businesses.
"We see nothing but good down the road, and we've been very busy during the construction," Thomas said.
UDOT says the interchange was designed to allow for high efficiency, while dealing with railroad tracks and a complicated setup of roads.
"That's due just to the alignment of Provo center street to mainline I-15, because it is such a high skewed angle that you really have to try something innovative, because that's something that is not typical," said Robert Stewart with the I-15 CORE project.
While it will probably take drivers a time or two to get use to the interchange, UDOT says drivers just need to follow the signs. "It shouldn't be tricky in that we have a lot of signs up in order to navigate the interchange but it is radically different," said Stewart.
UDOT does not expect too many other closures at Center Street in Provo. When paving of the freeway resumes next spring, there will be a few temporary closures of ramps, but overall this busy interchange is once again open for business.
The 24-mile I-15 CORE project is scheduled for completion by December 2012.
Email: [spenrod@ksl.com](<mailto: spenrod@ksl.com>)
