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Show Two-Year Road Construction At Bryce To Resolve Congestion, Increase Safety BRYCE CANYON NATIONAL NA-TIONAL PARK Gilbert Western West-ern Contractors of Salt Lake City will begin construction on the southern end of the main park road in Bryce Canyon National Park this week. The two-year project will completely reconstruct the southernmost south-ernmost eight miles of the road from just south of Farview Point to Rainbow Point. Modifications are designed to reduce congestion, increase safety, protect the resource and improve the visitor experience. During construction, this section of the road will be closed to the public. pub-lic. "We're very pleased that this project is finally getting underway," said Superintendent Fred Fagcr-grcn. Fagcr-grcn. "The park road was never designed for the volume of traffic it now receives, let alone the vehicle sizes, and this should be a tremendous tremen-dous help in handling these problems. prob-lems. Wc do want to reassure our visitors that the main viewpoints in the park will be open during the duration du-ration of this project and that we will make every effort to minimize the impacts of this construction." To accomplish this, Fagcrgrcn, working in conjunction with the Dixie National Forest, has arranged for all the construction traffic to enter en-ter the park on an old access road that enters the park through the national na-tional forest. The road has never been open for public access to the park, so visitors will not be affected. af-fected. The main park road was built during the 1930's and, other than routine maintenance, has not had any significant work since it was built. It is very narrow, the roadbed has sustained significant damage over the years, and many of the viewpoints parking areas arc inadequate in-adequate and dangerous. The original road from the park's northern boundary to Bryce Canyon Lodge, was constructed in 1923 by the Forest Service. Under a scries of contracts awarded by the National Park Service, the road was extended south along the plateau rim to Rainbow Point between 1930 and 1934. In 1987, the entire park road system was determined eligible eligi-ble for the National Register of Historical Places. Designed to comply with road standards of the 1930's, the road docs not meet current specifications and is unable to accommodate today's to-day's volume of traffic and vehicle size. Interim widening efforts have resulted in unstable slopes and the loss of shoulder areas. The road bed, never intended for winter use, has seriously deteriorated and become be-come difficult and expensive to maintain. Much of the roadwork will involve in-volve widening lanes and shoulder areas. Some sections of the road will also receive minor realignments, realign-ments, while small sections will be relocated farther west for safety reasons. Viewpoint parking areas will be redesigned to increase safety and eliminate safety hazards. The road overlooks from Farview Point south to Rainbow Point will be off-limits to vehicles for most of the construction period expected to go through at least the fall of 1995. Throughout planning and construction, con-struction, protection of park resources re-sources has been and will be con- sidcrcd, park spokesmen say. Road corridors have been surveyed for archcological sites and efforts will be made to preserve the historic character of trie original road. Heavy construction work will be interrupted from March 15 to July 15 when the nests of endangered peregrine falcons arc occupied. The Forest Service road used to haul materials will be closed for 30 days to accommodate mule deer fawning. Roadsides will be revege-latcd revege-latcd with plants grown from native seeds. The importance of the construction construc-tion was emphasized by Fagcrgrcn who said, "We've had situations where a 40-foot lour bus is backing into the road, traffic coming in both directions, and a bicycle tour peddling ped-dling along all this on a road thai is only 20 feet wide in many places. We've been very fortunate that no one has been seriously injured in the last several years," he said. The northern part of the park, where such famous viewpoints as Sunrise, Sunset, Inspiration and Bryce Points arc located, will be unaffected by the construction and will remain open year round. The operations at Bryce Canyon Lodge, which recently opened for the season, sea-son, will also be unaffected. Fagcrgrcn concluded "Wc realize real-ize that some visitors will be disap pointed at not being able to sec the southern end of the park, but when this project is completed, the road will be wider, parking areas will be redesigned, ad wc will be able to accommodate RV's, lour buses and bicycles in a safe and efficient manner." |
