A Summit County road planned near the site where Snyderville Basin’s first public cemetery could be is drawing the ire of Bear Hollow neighbors.
The route appears on draft blueprints for the graveyard and would connect Olympic Parkway and Bear Cub Drive.
Bear Hollow homeowners told the cemetery district board at a meeting April 13 they fear the road would funnel traffic into their community.
Cemetery board members say they included the road in cemetery designs to show it doesn’t conflict with Summit County’s plans. It’s not their proposed access point.
“And if we don't have a cemetery there, the road is still — the road is going to be there,” cemetery board member Max Greenhalgh said.
The road would cut south from Olympic, which curves west, to Bear Cub. It would be about 0.2 miles.
The connector originates from Summit County’s long-range transportation plan, which includes projects across the county through 2050. The road near Bear Hollow is on the menu in Phase 1 from 2022 to 2030.
Speaking on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” April 15, county transportation planner Carl Miller called it “critical.”
“That way we have full connection, and we have redundancy. So if there was a crash or an incident on the Olympic Parkway heading up to Utah Olympic Park, we would have different ways to direct traffic,” he said. “We can also use this as a catalyst for how we're going to serve Olympic traffic down the road.”
The short description of the concept in the long-range plan says the road would “help alleviate congestion on Ute Boulevard and Olympic Parkway as they connect onto [state Route] 224.”
But Bear Hollow residents don’t want to become a cut-through for commuters and skiers, like Old Ranch Road.
Resident Sandra Vandergriff, who called herself “cemetery girl,” told the board that the traffic is an everyday problem.
“The No. 1 upshot is: we're still against it at this location,” she said April 13. “By putting the cemetery in on [state Route] 224, and that access, you've now made it a straight thoroughfare from Kilby Road all the way to Bear Cub.”
According to cemetery board member Pete Gillwald, Summit County plans to commission a comprehensive study of Kimball Junction traffic.
Residents have called for a holistic approach as they’ve watched proposals from Dakota Pacific Real Estate, Utah Olympic Park and Junction Commons processed piecemeal with isolated traffic studies.
The cemetery district is offering to fund its part of the traffic study if it means it gets done sooner.
Before any road connects Olympic and Bear Cub, Miller said the county will study the impacts to neighbors and the environment.
He added that just because a project is in the long-range plan doesn’t mean it will happen soon, or at all, because there’s limited money to go around. The county will update the long-range plan this year and reissue it in 2027, incorporating public input.
Pete Gillwald is the play-by-play announcer for Park City High School football games on KPCW.
