Kevin Kitchen with UDOT called into the KOAL Studios regarding upcoming road construction projects that will be taking place in our area.
The first topic of discussion was the ongoing construction of the new Port of Entry. With the northbound traffic side of the Port of Entry now open, Kevin talked about when the southbound traffic side will open. “We’ve been trying to get some work done on the structures to finish up the buildings so they are ready by code and everything else to have people move in there and we had a little bit of a delay with that because of supply issues, supply chain issues with COVID and everything else and we’ve been working with another division on the building part. It looks like we may be able to get that thing opened by May, tentatively we’re looking now at potentially even having a ribbon cutting for that event.”
Kitchen went on to talk about road projects that will affect our area, saying “The biggest thing for your drivers to be aware of this summer will be basically an overlay of asphalt that’s going to take place roughly from Helper up to Emma Park road.” Kitchen stated that there is no start date set for this project as of yet but once it starts they are anticipating that it will be finished by mid-October.
As far as projects that could affect travel on US 6 closer to Spanish Fork, Kitchen stated “they’ve got a couple of intersection projects they’re doing. One of them right now basically on Powerhouse Road is expected to wrap up in the next couple of weeks.” Kitchen also went on to talk about a project at the Horse Canyon rest area saying, “The horse canyon area down in Emery County, the rest area there, we are going to expand that a little. It’s got a lot of use and so we’re going to expand that a little bit and add a few more facilities to that.”
Kitchen also spoke about a study that UDOT is doing in the Helper area right now. “In Helper, we’re doing a little study right now that takes a look at access management and how to deal with that. We know that the growth is coming in and we’re seeing commercial enterprises try to set up shop there. So beginning a study with that helps us understand where the accesses should be along US 6.”
Summer means doing chip-seal projects and Kitchen talked about where these projects will be for our area. “We’ve got one up by Electric Lake down to around Hughes Canyon area that we’ll be doing the chip-seal later this summer. It looks like it will be mid-June.” There will also be a chip-seal project on SR 10 between Ferron and Clawson that should begin the first or second week of June.
UDOT did allocate money to Price City to do some road work. Kitchen states that “some curb and gutter work will take place on 1st North and 2nd East.”
For more information you can go to udot.utah.gov and click on “Projects” and you will see a map that shows all of the road construction being done in the state. Please remember to be careful driving in the areas where there will be crews working during these projects. Slow down and use extra caution.
The complete interview is below.