Two lanes added to Pioneer Crossing to alleviate traffic in Northwest Utah County
May 1, 2026, 5:42 PM | Updated: 6:57 pm
A computer monitor shows live traffic camera footage of an accident involving a cement truck near Redwood Road and Pioneer Crossing at the Utah Department of Transportation Operations Center in Salt Lake City on Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. (Kristin Murphy, Deseret News)
(Kristin Murphy, Deseret News)
SALT LAKE CITY — Pioneer Crossing will open additional lanes next week, bringing long‑awaited relief to drivers in northwest Utah County as the region continues to grow.
The Utah Department of Transportation is expanding a 4.5‑mile stretch of the roadway between Lehi and Saratoga Springs. Beginning Monday, the corridor will increase from two lanes in each direction to three.
“Currently, there are two lanes in each direction, and this Monday morning, drivers on their way to work are going to be able to use an additional lane in each direction,” UDOT spokesperson John Gleason explained. “So we’ll go from four lanes to six lanes across.”
UDOT finished the project two months earlier than planned, thanks to this year’s unusually dry winter.
Gleason said the project is designed to ease heavy congestion that has built up as more people move into the area. UDOT has made several recent transportation improvements, including a new segment of Mountain View Corridor, and the start of construction on 2100 North.
Still, Pioneer Crossing has been a persistent trouble spot in recent years, with backups stretching for miles during peak hours.
“With all this growth, comes a lot more vehicles on the roads.” KSL Traffic Reporter Rikki Meece explained. “On a regular basis traffic gets backed up and slow. And this has been going on for months. All it takes is one crash to bring it to a standstill, leaving drivers just stuck there until they can get that crash cleared.”
UDOT estimates the changes will save drivers more than six minutes a day on average. Without these improvements, it predicted travel times would have increased from about 19 minutes to 32 minutes by 2037.
UDOT also plans to introduce flex lanes on the roadway later this year. The system uses overhead signals to shift the direction of a lane depending on traffic demand — a red “X” to close the lane and a green arrow to open it.
Cars drive on a flex lane system on 5400 South between Redwood Road and Bangerter Highway in Salt Lake County in 2012. UDOT is expanding Pioneer Crossing to include flex lanes with a project that starts Monday. (Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)
“That means that as you’re heading east in the morning, we’ll have the ability to make it four lanes heading east, where the majority of traffic is moving,” Gleason explained. “And then at night as people are going back home, we’ll change it to four lanes, westbound.”
Gleason said the approach has worked well in other parts of the state, including on 5400 South in Taylorsville, where flex lanes have been in use for more than a decade. Overnight closures will begin May 10 so crews can install the overhead lighting and equipment needed for the flex‑lane system.
Related: UDOT reveals new 2026 road construction projects
This story was adapted from a radio broadcast script using artificial intelligence. Every story, including those adapted with AI, is reviewed by a human editor before publication to ensure that KSL’s editorial standards are upheld.
