Saving taxpayer dollars and creating a safer environment -- those are two of the main reasons American Fork City and Alpine School District cited when they began discussions with an eye toward changing a road alignment that has been vexing drivers for decades.

Going north, 100 East heads from southern American Fork, becomes the Alpine Highway and goes through Alpine. Going south, the road heads to Utah Lake.

In the middle, however, the two do not quite meet. At 200 South, there is a jog between the roads, both labeled 100 East. It is approximately 200 feet between the center lines of the two roads, Director of Public Works Howard Denney said.

The jog in the road also creates problems for children walking to Greenwood Elementary School, which is at 50 E. 200 South.

"There are two points of conflict with students walking to the school," he said. "It's hard to defend them with a crossing guard. The safety of the children has to be utmost." Denney said it is almost like one long intersection because of the configuration of the roads.

Officials are looking at options to determine the one that will best suit the public.

"We're trying to be proactive in looking at the alternatives," said Alpine School District spokesman Rob Smith. "We are working with city officials to ensure that whatever project we do at Greenwood will not be impacted by the expansion of 100 East."

He referred to expansion plans for Greenwood Elementary, similar to what was done recently at Shelley Elementary School in which portable classrooms were replaced by permanent structures. The district anticipates having the plans completed this winter and construction started in the spring, Smith said.

Another project helped prompt the consideration.

It started with making preparations for the expansion of the FrontRunner line into Utah County. The city plans to expand a railroad crossing south of Greenwood.

Those plans affect the school district as its bus garage is on the south side of American Fork and district vehicles use 100 East for many of their routes.

"A lot of buses come up that road," said city engineer Andy Spencer. "We thought it was important, and they would like that railroad crossing widened." Spencer said the district paid approximately $85,000 toward the expanded railroad crossing on the condition the city work with them to find a solution to the awkward intersection at 100 East and 200 South. He said district officials had said it was difficult for the buses to negotiate the left turn, followed almost immediately by a right turn.

Spencer said the plan was to decide on an option for the road and have the school make its plans around that. The road would not be reconstructed right away.

"If this got built in five years it would be a miracle," he said. "It is probably more like 10 years." He said the city would work to find funding sources and had hired a consultant to help identify those.

Most of the designs that have been considered are some version of an "S" curve, with most of it crossing the Greenwood property in the parking lot on the east side of the school. That lot would probably be rebuilt, farther to the south. One proposal was a roundabout, encompassing both segments of 100 East.

Some officials on both the district and city levels objected to the roundabout, citing safety concerns.

"Young children don't navigate them very well," Spencer said. The district ruled out the roundabout.

Smith said the district would consider safety in making a choice.

"The plan is to look at the impact to students and parents as they come to the school," he said. "How do we mitigate those, for the students who walk and the parents who do dropoffs? We also want the least impact on the facility." Spencer said the school district personnel had said the road should be at least 75 feet away from the school.

Finalizing a plan now will save money, Smith said. Spencer agreed.

"They want to get it settled now so they know taxpayer dollars weren't wasted building some improvements at Greenwood that get torn out in the future because of this road realignment," he said. "It will optimize the improvement of the Greenwood campus and the funds spent there."

Denney said that expanding 100 East to the south would permit a better traffic flow as the city grows. It would allow an additional access to the 500 East freeway interchange as residents on the south side of the city could take that to 1100 South, then go north to the interchange. They would not have to go onto State Street to have that access.

Spencer said the city's master plan for the future anticipates 100 East on the south side will carry about the same volume of traffic it does in north American Fork and Highland today. The city had asked UDOT to consider a freeway crossing at 100 West or Center Street to permit traffic flow from north and south, but that request was denied. Spencer estimated about half the traffic previously projected to cross at that location would choose 100 East as the alternative to crossing the freeway.

"We will probably have around 15,000 to 16,000 vehicle trips a day by the time the city is built out," he said.