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OGDEN -- SALT LAKE CITY - It turns out it costs UDOT more than $1 million a year to put all those orange barrels in the way of your commute.
You think about road construction costs and you think labor, concrete, asphalt. You don't think those orange barrels are costing the state.
Utah Department of Transportation Construction Manager Chris Peterson said, "The approximate dollar amount we pay is a little over a million dollars."
That's per year, just to sit there.
"It is a lot of money, but it's important to the safety of the traveling public to make sure they know where to be, so they can be safe, and they can keep our workers safe alongside the road," Peterson said.
He says UDOT rents more barrels than it owns. The going rate per barrel per day is about 40 cents, and that adds up to tens of thousands of dollars, even more on large projects.
"We want to be careful that we don't misuse the dollars, and so we're real careful that we put out the minimums, that we don't really exceed what we're supposed to. But at the same time, we make sure that it's safe when we use those," Peterson said.
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