As part of their agenda on Wednesday, the Summit County Council will discuss an extension for Chalk Creek Road near Coalville—a route whose history goes back for decades.
The council meets at the Coalville Courthouse and will take up the topic of Chalk Creek Road at about 4:15.
County manager Tom Fisher explains at the council’s retreat last spring, a council member suggested extending Chalk Creek, running east from Coalville to meet up with the Mirror Lake Highway.
“We’re ready to release a contract, we’ve gone through a bid-process on that, to get a design firm ready to design that road." Fisher continued, "It’s actually quite a long story for this road it goes back to the 1970’s when oil and gas was being developed up in the area. The commission at the time put some money into grading a road, building a bridge, putting in some culverts out in that area on this right-of-way but never built the road and we haven’t since. It’s coming back at this point probably more of an economic development project and a tourism project than anything else.”
The extension of Chalk Creek would be a little under 10 miles.
“There might be some right-of-way changes along the way we do have right-of-way for it right now. We’re talking with the three land-owners in the area and we’re talking with them to see if they have any other ideas about trading some right-of-way for land up there. We’ll see how that goes through the design process. We don’t have the construction funded at this time. That would be considered as part of the 2019 budget process.” Fisher said he’s not sure where the road will connect to SR 150 “We’re going to be taking a tour of that before the October 10th meeting, similar to what we’re doing with the landfill it’ll just take a lot longer. I’ll learn those details when we get up there.”
Fisher said the county still hasn’t decided what kind of “Through” road it will be.
“We’re not sure whether we would build that as a paved surface right away. It could be a gravel road to begin with. That would be serviceable, and it would be maintained any time of year, but we have to have all those discussions as we go through the design process to see what ultimately the council wants to do there.” Fisher says that they’re open to hearing from neighbors who would be opposed to the project. “I think, just like with any other connection, there’s pluses and minuses to it depending on your purview. We’re getting out there public about going through this process and again this project has had money put into it in the past it’s just been quite a while.”
