It’s sort of like digging through the couch cushions for change — except the Utah Department of Transportation just found $451 million doing it.
The agency scoured accounts in recent highway projects for any unused money as construction closed out, or for savings on new work that is costing less than long-term budgets had set aside.
It found, for example, that a new project to extend the Mountain View Corridor from 4100 South to State Road 201 is costing $140 million less, from unexpected savings from moving utilities that reduced lawsuit risk. It saved $17 million on an Interstate 15 project in Davis County, and $15 million on another ongoing I-15 rebuilding project in Lehi.