For more than two decades, the Utah Department of
Transportation has planned to widen the two-lane road that winds
through narrow Provo Canyon. Best known as the site of Sundance, a
resort founded by actor Robert Redford, the canyon is one of the
most spectacular in the Wasatch Mountains. One-third of the
“road-improvement” project is already complete, but a $37 million,
2-mile stretch in the narrowest section of the canyon has run into
a series of roadblocks.
Critics have argued for
years that widening the road to four lanes would destroy hillsides
and damage the Provo River, a popular trout-fishing stream and
source of drinking water. Their warnings came true last year, when
work crews cutting into the canyon walls caused four major
landslides, shutting off traffic for days at a
time.
“This is a living, moving canyon,” says
Julie Mack of the Provo Canyon Coalition, a group that has sued
twice to stop the road, without success. “If you start cutting into
it, it’s not going to take it well.”
The
transportation department, dubbed UDOT, hadn’t done any geological
tests on the area where the landslides occurred, says Elliott Lips,
a geologist who works for the coalition. The spot now shows a muddy
scar over 200 feet high.
In December, the federal
Army Corps of Engineers sent the state a letter saying the
department was violating its code on the other side of the road as
well. UDOT’s permit requires an 8-foot buffer between the road and
the river, but in several cases, the road was closer than 8
feet.
The incident was a “miscommunication,” says
UDOT engineer Jeff Baird. “There was only one minor violation. We
were actually in compliance.”
According to Julie
Mack, encroachment on the river is just the latest sign that
there’s not room enough in Provo canyon for a four-lane highway.
Her group is considering a third lawsuit. “Everything that could go
wrong has gone wrong,” says Mack. “This road is going nowhere.”
* Greg
Hanscom
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline A road to nowhere?.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
