When the first cars stream over the Bangerter Parkway this morning, they will be passing nine months and $4 million worth of work that connects south valley suburbs.
The mile-long parkway connects Highland Drive and Bangerter Highway and leads eastbound travelers to Traverse Ridge Road above Draper and westbound cars to Bluffdale and Riverton.
Draper bought the land from farmers and constructed the parkway to spur economic development along the roadway; land at both ends of the parkway is zoned for commercial development, and a residential designation is sandwiched between those. City officials hope to encourage the development with the new road, even though there is virtually none at the site now. The residential development that is mostly complete will also someday have a roughly 10-acre park and a church.
Draper City Engineer Alan Taylor expects around 5,000 cars each day to use the parkway, mostly traffic heading to and from Draper's southern neighborhoods.
"It'll become a major collector that will allow traffic from the bench homes in the SunCrest development to feed directly into the Bangerter Highway," Taylor said of the subdivision that straddles Salt Lake and Utah counties. From there, drivers will have quick access to west-side roads and I-15 in both directions.
Crews have been working the past nine months to finish the parkway in time for the ribbon cutting, scheduled at 7 a.m. They've moved 13,000 cubic yards of fill, laid 1,100 tons of asphalt and poured concrete for 3,334 square yards of sidewalk. During the next couple of weeks crews will continue seeding the slopes along the road and finishing up sidewalks.
Bluffdale, just west of Draper, hopes that the road will bring shoppers and sales tax revenue to the city in five to ten years.
"If it's bringing traffic down to 14600 South, eventually we will have retail there, and that would be a windfall for Bluffdale," said Bluffdale Mayor Wayne Mortimer.
But foremost on Mortimer's mind is the need to lighten traffic on stressed intersections.
"Any time that we have areas where congestion's going to be, we need to support opening that up and be very open to make sure that the traffic flow is correct," Mortimer said. "This does that."
E-mail: kswinyard@desnews.com