Tooele County hires lobbyist to push for Midvalley Highway expansion

TOOELE, Utah — The Tooele County Council has hired a high-powered lobbying firm to push for expanding Midvalley Highway, which opened just a few years ago.

County officials say traffic congestion is getting worse as that area keeps growing. They hope their newly hired mouthpiece on Capitol hill can get the state’s attention to bump the highway expansion higher up the priority list.

During a meeting last month, the county council approved hiring GTC Consulting, which was founded by Greg Curtis, former speaker of the Utah House of Representatives. According to the contract, the county will pay Curtis’s firm $450,000 over three years to lobby state officials in “obtaining funding for all phases of the new Midvalley Highway,” including “right-of-way, design, engineering and construction.”

Midvalley Highway, or state Route 179, was finished in 2021. The first phase connected I-80 to state Route 138 and was celebrated as a way to alleviate congestion. But officials in Tooele County are now anxious to get the next phase of it done as soon as possible.

“We are one of the fastest-growing counties in the state of Utah,” said Brittany Lopez, assistant county manager, in an interview Thursday with KSL TV.

The Utah Department of Transportation has plans to expand Midvalley Highway but there is currently no funding for it, according to a spokesperson. Lopez said an expansion would help disperse traffic in the county — and make the roads safer.

“We just need to get the lobbyists in there to get some attention on our community, the growth in our community,” Lopez said.

Of the $450,000 Curtis’s firm stands to receive from Tooele County, Lopez added, “I would say it’s money well spent.”

Curtis declined to comment Thursday on the Midvalley Highway lobbying effort, referring KSL TV back to the county. State records show Curtis previously lobbied for Tooele County from 2019 to 2020.

Preston Potter regularly drives to work on Midvalley Highway. He said the road is “backed up almost a mile to two miles every morning.”

He said an expansion would be welcome, especially with how quickly Tooele County is growing.

“With the amount of people that need to go from one valley to another, it needs to get better,” Potter said.