UtahRails Highways
This page was last updated on September 28, 2011.
Additional Information
- Street Numbering in Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County — Information about the street numbering system used by Salt Lake County.
- The Golden Pass — A History of Transportation in Parleys Canyon, Utah.
- Federal Aid projects for overpasses and underpasses — Information about the federally-funded grade separation projects completed in from the late 1920s through the early 1940s, to improve the safety of railroad and automobile crossings at-grade. These are generally known as Art Deco-era bridges.
- Highway projects approved by the Utah Public Utilities Commission.
Overview
Railroads and roads developed side by side throughout Utah's history. Roads came first, in the form of trails used by travelers, the Pony Express and various stagecoach companies. Then came county roads, administered and maintained by local county governments. Many of the early pioneering railroads were built paralleling a selected county road through the populated areas of the territory, and later the state.
One of the first county roads was actually a toll road built by Parley Pratt through what soon became Parleys Canyon, east of Salt Lake City. When Utah Central was built in 1869, it paralleled the county road between Salt Lake City and Ogden through each of the intermediate cities and towns of Roy, Clearfield (Syracuse Junction), Layton, Kaysville, Farmington, and Bountiful.
By the 1920s, the state's railroad network was essentially finalized, with little growth afterward. But the network of roads and highways grew rapidly as public funds were used to expand the network and improve the roads themselves. Paving started in the 1920s for the major roads, and improvements came quickly as the federal Transportation Act of 1920 began being used to improve the roads across the nation. The Federal Highway System (later the National Highway System, or NHS) came into existence with the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1925, as a response to the confusion created by the 250 or so named highways, such as the Lincoln Highway or the National Old Trails Highway. (see also U. S. Numbered Highways at Wikipedia, which includes separate entries for the larger U. S. Routes in the nation; see this Wikipedia page for a list of each of the numbered routes.)
As a result of this act of 1925, in 1926 a standardized numbering system was adopted, with several designated routes within Utah. These routes include U. S. routes 6, 40, and 50, traversing the state east to west, and U. S. routes 89 and 91 traversing the state north to south. There were several spurs in Utah of the larger national routes, including U. S. Route 189 which paralleled several railroad routes.
Separating the Roads and the Railroads
As soon as there were roads crossing railroad tracks, there were grade crossing accidents, with trains running into automobiles, or autos running into trains.
Timeline
(selected projects only)
December 1849
Parley Pratt opened his "Golden Pass" toll road in Big Kanyon Creek Kanyon (later Parleys Canyon). This was the first improved road in Utah intended for public use. (click here for more information about The Golden Pass)
May 1963
Interstate 80 was opened through Silver Creek Canyon, between Echo and Park City, replacing U. S. Route 189 along the same route..
Part of U. S. Route 189 takes it from Echo, Utah to Silver Creek Junction northeast of Park City on Interstate 80. U. S. 189 is paralleled along this stretch by Union Pacific’s Park City Branch. At Silver Creek Junction, U. S. 189 meets U. S. Route 40 and continues south through Heber and into Provo Canyon.
The route of Union Pacific’s Park City Branch took it through Silver Creek Canyon, west from Wanship to Snyderville Basin. Through the canyon, the Park City Branch split the eastbound and westbound lanes of today’s Interstate 80. The route of Highway 189 through Silver Creek Canyon was originally that of the territorial toll road between Echo and Salt Lake City. (Additional research is needed to determine the relationship between the Park City Branch, the territorial toll road and the abandoned-in-1887 Utah Eastern alignment through Silver Creek Canyon.)
Although the railroad’s operations were not affected, the appearance of Silver Creek Canyon began to change in June 1960 with the construction of an all-new alignment for Interstate 80 south of the tracks on previously untouched land. The existing U.S. Route 189 to the north had been built in the 1920s on the abandoned Utah Eastern alignment (abandoned in 1887), and remained in use. Two-way traffic was diverted to the new eastbound lanes upon completion in 1962, and the old U.S. 189 alignment was rebuilt to become the new westbound lanes. The entire project was completed in May 1963.
May 1967
Union Pacific and Western Pacific realigned their mainlines west of Salt Lake City to allow for the construction of Interstate 80.
WP and UP completed a line change to allow the construction of today's I-80, west of Salt Lake City. Included was a new line for WP from about 1000 West, paralleling UP's LA&SL line west to Gladiola Street, at about 3200 West. WP's mainline was abandoned upon completion of the line change, which included a new location called "WP-UP Junction" at about 1100 West. The original WP/LA&SL diamond crossing at Navajo Street was abandoned and the tracks between the new WP-UP Junction and Smelter, 15 miles to the west, were operated as joint trackage. (Track and Time, by Jeff Asay, page 94)
WP-UP Junction, a double crossover at about 1100 West, was added in 1967 to replace the "Navajo Street" diamond-crossing at about 1400 West. As noted above, Jeff Asay wrote that the change was to put the WP and UP(LA&SL) lines west from Salt Lake City, on a common alignment in preparation for what today is I-80, and the new superhighway's crossing over the two rail lines at Cheyenne Street (about 1550 West). With the common ownership of both UP and WP lines after the 1983 merger, the need went away to crossover to WP-owned tracks before the ownership changed at the Jordan River, and the double crossover was moved several miles west to Orange Street, about a mile west of Redwood Road. (click here for a Google map.) The map shows that the abandoned WP route was used as the location for Interstate 80, including the later interchange between I-80 and the later I-215 Belt Route, completed in 1985-1986.
October 1970
Interstate 80N was opened in lower Weber Canyon.
A minor line change in Union Pacific's mainline in lower Weber Canyon took place in 1966 just east of the Devils Gateway bridges to accommodate the construction of Interstate 80 North. Construction continued on the new highway until it was opened for traffic in October 1970. On May 1, 1980, Interstate 80N was changed to Interstate 84, the designation used today.
May 12, 1997
Construction started on I-15 reconstruction project, covering a 17-mile section of Interstate 15 through Salt Lake County. (UDOT Press Release dated April 30, 2002)
July 15, 2001
I-15 reconstruction project was completed, $32 million under budget, and three months ahead of the scheduled October 15, 2001 completion date. The project included 142 bridges and 10 new interchanges, spread out over a distance of 17 miles. (UDOT Press Release dated April 30, 2002)
The first interchange to reopen was at 600 North, which opened during the week of October 24 to November 6, 1998.
In May 2001, the project was essentially completed, with both northbound and southbound lanes being opened to the public.
The total cost of the I-15 reconstruction project was reported to be $1.632 billion, compared to Boston's Central Artery/Ted Williams Tunnel Project ("The Big Dig") with a reported cost of $4.1 billion, including $867 million in cost overruns. The I-15 reconstruction project was the result of the need to expand the highway's six lanes of travel (three in each direction), with eight to ten lanes of travel (four or five in each direction), and was in response to the increased transportation needs due to Salt Lake City being named in June 1995 as the host city for the 2002 Winter Olympics, scheduled for February 2002. The schedule was accelerated from a normal seven years for a traditional design, bid, build project, to a more rapid 4.5 years for a design-build project, meaning that construction was begun on certain portions while design was not yet complete on other portions. The first designs were completed in February 1996. Due to the very large nature of the project, the contract was awarded on March 26, 1997 to a consortium of large companies under the name of Wasatch Constructors, a joint venture of Peter Kiewit Sons of Omaha, Nebraska, Granite Construction Co. of Watsonville, California, and Washington Construction Co. of Highland, California. (U.S. DOT Office of Inspector General, Audit Report, issued November 13, 2000)
The I-15 reconstruction project was notable within the civil engineering community as the first large-scale usage of expanded polystyrene foam blocks to stabilize large fills and embankments.
November 2009
The Pleasant Grove grade separation underpass for State Street to pass under the Union Pacific tracks (known as UDOT structure C-149), was closed in October 2008. Over the next 11 months, Utah Department of Transportation spent $20 million to completely replace the underpass with a new alignment for State Street, which included a new overpass for the railroad tracks. The new overpass was opened for traffic on November 9, 2009. (Deseret News, November 14, 2009) Planning started in February 2004. (Deseret News, February 20, 2004) The original underpass was built in 1937.
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