A citizen vision for Provo
Provo should build like Provo, not Salt Lake City. We can add homes our kids can afford, keep our dollars in local hands, and make our streets calmer and safer, by building the way Provo used to.
Roots & Routes · building a better Provo, one block at a time.
Illustrative 100 West, reimagined as a calm Provo street with homes and shops built by locals.
The choice in front of us
When the city asked residents their biggest worries about Provo’s future, two answers rose to the top: how we’re growing, and traffic. Both come back to the same thing, and Provo has already shown us the way through, because we’ve built it before.
Our answer has two halves, named for what they protect. Roots is how we build. Routes is how we move.
Roots
Homes and shops built by local hands, in the small-town pattern that gave us downtown, so growth adds homes families can afford and keeps our money in Provo.
Routes
Streets designed to slow speeders, shorten daily trips, and ease congestion, so the drive gets better and our kids can cross the street safely.
Roots
Land use guided by our heritage and kept in local hands: homes and shops built by Provo, for Provo.
What we’re getting now
Drive our main roads and you see the same building going up over and over: oversized, look-alike apartment blocks, usually financed from out of state. We have a name for it: box-slop. Developers don’t build it because they love it. They build it because our rules make it the only thing that can get approved.
These projects take tens of millions of dollars, so the money, the decisions, and the profit all live somewhere else. The rent leaves town. The buildings could be anywhere. And when one giant bet wobbles, the whole block stalls.
Built by Provo
Box-slop
Drag to compare: the same Provo corner, two ways. Illustrative
Both add homes. Only one keeps the ownership, the rent, and the pride here in Provo.
The fix
The parts of Provo we love most went up one building at a time, by local owners who lived here and cared. Center Street wasn’t built by one company in one deal. Make that pattern easy again and Provo’s own families, builders, and shopkeepers can get back to work.
When twenty local owners build a block, the wealth stays in Provo. When one out-of-state company builds it, the wealth leaves.
A home for every chapter of life
Most housing fights get stuck on single houses versus condo towers. In between sits a whole range of family-friendly homes that share the same small-town scale and local craft, from a starter house to a brick building downtown. None of them is a tower.
01
For first-time buyers & aging parents
A modest first home, or a small cottage out back for a grandparent or grown kid. The gentlest way to add a home. Nothing a neighbor sees from the street.
02
For young families & downsizers
A handful of small homes around a shared green, with eyes on the kids from every kitchen window. A yard and a front door, without a full-lot price.
03
For growing families
Two- and three-story homes that share walls but keep their own front door, wrapped around a shared courtyard. Room to grow that lives like a house.
04
For downtown living
Three to five stories of brick built right to the sidewalk: homes above, a café or grocer below, a green courtyard within. Center Street, carried forward.
More homes, the same small-town scale, built the way Provo already builds.
Keep our money in Provo
A dollar spent at a Provo-owned shop mostly stays in Provo, paying local wages, local suppliers, local taxes. A dollar spent at an out-of-state chain mostly leaves. When we make room for small local businesses, we get richer as a town.
Fifty years ago, when Provo was about half its size, neighborhoods had dozens of corner grocers within a short walk of home. Today there are a fraction of that, and the west side has none. Those stores didn’t vanish on their own. They were zoned out of nearly every block. We can let them come back.
A local grocer
Empty lot today
Drag to compare: an empty corner becomes a neighborhood grocer with homes above. Illustrative
We’ve done this before
Our most loved, most visited, most productive blocks were built one building at a time by people who lived here. That pattern still works. The only question is whether we let it happen on the empty lots we have today.
Routes
Streets that move people safely, smoothly, and humanely, so the drive gets better and the neighborhood gets quieter.
The most common complaint in Provo
Ask the mayor what residents complain about most, and the answer isn’t potholes or parking. It’s speeding cars on the streets where our kids play. The good news: the same fixes that calm a neighborhood also make the whole city’s traffic flow better.
Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.
The upside of calmer neighborhood streets is smoother traffic everywhere.Real data from University Avenue
University Avenue is posted at 35 mph. But with a stoplight nearly every block, our 100 timed trips crawled at under 15 mph and sat stopped 37% of the time. Trade a little top speed for steady flow, roundabouts instead of red lights, and the very same drive ends sooner.
35 mph limit · 14.7 mph average · stopped 37% of the trip
25 mph limit · ~21 mph average · stopped ~5% of the trip
The hidden cause of our traffic
Most of Provo’s traffic comes down to distance. Almost every errand is a drive across town, because that’s the only option our streets leave us. When a gallon of milk is a half-mile away instead of three miles, that’s one fewer car in the line.
This is where Roots and Routes meet. When neighborhoods have a corner store, a café, or a school within a short walk, fewer trips need a car at all, and the ones that do are shorter. The roads clear up and traffic congestion goes down.
The same idea, across the whole city
Almost every errand in Provo is a drive across town, because that’s the only way our streets let us get around. Give neighborhoods a few more places worth walking to, and roughly a third of those car trips never need to start.
Local car traffic: today
Provo streets shaded by modeled traffic load; slide toward shorter trips to cut local driving 36%. Projection · streets: Provo City / UGRC · basemap © OpenStreetMap, © CARTO
None of this takes the car away. We love the freedom it gives. The point is choice: when the people who would rather walk, bike, or take the train finally can, the road clears up for everyone. And there’s a parking spot waiting when you get there.
One street, both ideas
It’s Provo Center Street 2.0: the same comfortable, locally owned main street Provo already loves, on a stretch of 100 West that’s underutilized today. Same corner, same view. Watch it change.
Station Street
100 West today
The same corner, today and as it could be. Illustrative
Inspired by Provo’s pioneer heritage
Between the train station and Center Street runs a quiet, half-empty stretch of 100 West. It’s the easiest place in Provo to prove all of this at once: homes and shops built by locals, on a calm street that’s a pleasure to walk and easy to drive. We even have a name for it: Station Street.
Station Street
100 West today
Drag to compare: the same view of 100 West, today and reimagined. Illustrative
What this gets us
Grown the way Provo did 100 years ago, this is the town we hand to our kids:
This happens when Provo asks for it
Provo’s leaders move when residents speak up. Share your story about why a Provo built by Provo matters to you. Then send this to a neighbor who feels the same.
Let Provo’s leaders know there’s real support for a Provo built by Provo.
Share your story →Or show us where: drop a pin and tell us what you want to see in your neighborhood.
Open the idea map →