Summit County's Silver Creek road work progresses with fiber

Aug 11, 2023

The public hearing concluding Wednesday’s Summit County Council meeting involves adjusting county roads on paper to match what’s actually been built in Silver Creek.

The county council will consider Wasatch Way, which bends more due west than originally planned. The only problem is the county retains the right to build a road through two owners’ lots.

The county is expected to relinquish that right Wednesday, with what County Manager Shayne Scott called a “non-controversial” right-of-way adjustment.

“As we get through projects, and we get some more refined drawings, some of the acquisitions have needed to change,” Scott said. “Sometimes we've had to rezone small chunks of land or areas just to accommodate right-of-way. So this is really one of those.”

It’s an area with other on-going road construction too, mainly the Bitner Ranch Road to Silver Creek Road connector, named Mammoth Drive.

Work began earlier this summer on the Silver Creek side and has since crossed to the Bitner side. Bitner Road from Knob Hill to Valley Drive is closed, with a detour taking residents up Knob Hill.

The county plans to widen and reconstruct lower Bitner Road and some of Silver Creek Road this year. That includes beginning work on a new, more secure mailhouse for Silver Creek residents, which has been prone to theft in the past.

2024 will bring Mammoth Drive itself and the final touches on Bitner and Silver Creek roads. Scott said part of the project is building fiber optic cable lines underneath the road.

He said it’s a proactive way to ensure future internet providers don’t need to dig up the new road to install internet cables.

“This is trying to bridge that gap where the private sector is coming in and not installing internet in certain areas, because it's cost-prohibitive to them,” Scott said.

Mammoth Drive construction has also necessitated moving the school bus stop on Silver Creek Road. Until further notice, the school bus is picking students up in the overflow parking lot of Mountain Life Church at 7375 Silver Creek Road.

The Bitner-Silver Creek connector is not on the county’s agenda Wednesday, only the nearby right-of-way vacation. The meeting begins Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. at the Sheldon Richins Building in Kimball Junction, and on Zoom.

Click here to see what else the county council will discuss.