This city will be the last in southern Utah to be bypassed by an interstate highway. The target date is Monday, Sept. 25.
That's when Utah Department of Transportation officials plan to open the final 8-mile section of I-70 between Richfield and Sigurd, Sevier County. The date is tentative, but construction and finishing touches to the project are on schedule. Sterling Davis, UDOT District Three engineer in Richfield, said a ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held when the freeway is opened to traffic.The initial layer of concrete was laid in late May and the final surface completed in August by the James Cape Construction Co. of Racine, Wis.
With the opening of the section, traffic will flow across all of I-70. U.S. 89 in Sevier County will no longer be used as an alternate.
Putting I-70 in Sevier County has required several projects through rugged-mountainous terrain and about 40 miles through the Sevier Valley.
Except for a 45-mile section in Emery County, four lanes of the freeway have been completed from where I-70 joins I-15 near Cove Fort in Millard County to the Utah-Colorado border.
Several contracts have been awarded and work is progressing in Emery County, building additional traffic lanes. That section was opened several years ago but only for two-way traffic.
Meanwhile, U.S. 89 and U.S. 50 are getting improvements, and projects are on the docket for next year, Davis said.
A widening project is nearing completion on U.S. 50 west of Salina to the Sevier-Millard county line. Traffic is increasing on U.S. 50 and this specific section accommodates numerous heavy truck-trailers hauling coal from the Southern Utah Fuel Co. mine in Sevier County to the Intermountain Power Plant near Delta.
A 5-mile section of the U.S. 89 between Circleville and Junction in Piute County is planned next year because of high maintenance costs of about $50,000 annually. "This new alignment and construction should eliminate those problems for years to come," Davis said.
The new alignment is west of the present highway in the $3 million project. Davis said U-62 from Kingston west and connecting with the new alignment of U.S. 89 is planned as part of the project.
Improvements are planned or have been done on main streets in several communities along U.S. 89, including Richfield.