- Utah Highway Patrol will lead Bangerter Highway enforcement starting July 1.
- UHP emphasized collaboration with local agencies for public safety on Bangerter in a press conference Wednesday.
- Local leaders said they welcome UHP's role, allowing their officers to focus on other city areas.
TAYLORSVILLE — The Utah Highway Patrol will become the primary law enforcement agency overseeing the Bangerter Highway stating July 1.
UHP Col. Michael Rapich says it's a move that has been more than two years in the making.
"We sat down with all the valley chiefs collaboratively and came up with the overall strategy. We also met individually with every single municipal police department and talked about this specifically," he said, noting that enforcement along the Bangerter will still be a collaborative effort between the state and local jurisdictions.
The UHP, along with officers and mayors from several cities that the highway runs through, held a joint press conference Wednesday to announce the change.
"I absolutely want to emphasize that this transition is not about the Utah Highway Patrol taking over, but is strengthening public safety through enhanced collaboration. While UHP will lead day-to-day traffic enforcement, we will continue to work closely with our local partners to share information, coordinate response efforts, to address cross-jurisdictional incidents such as domestic violence, felony stops and other crimes," Rapich said.
But while the UHP says it isn't necessarily "taking over," local agencies say they very much welcome troopers taking the lead in day-to-day enforcement.
"When they came out and said highway patrol is going to start patrolling this, I was so excited because (our) officers can take care of our city when they need to," West Jordan Mayor Dick Burton said.
Burton says there are rarely minor fender-benders on the Bangerter Highway. A crash is typically a major event because of the speeds on the road, which often tie up lots of city resources.
Taylorsville Police Chief Brady Cottam says his officers respond on average to about 100 incidents on the highway each year. And on a snowy day, he could have all his officers on duty spend up to three hours on the Bangerter Highway.
"As far as enforcement, I'll be honest, I have to tell my officers, 'OK, I need you to come off of Bangerter,' because they could sit there literally all day and have very active enforcement," he said. "I literally have to tell my folks, 'That's enough. Time to go somewhere else.' And that's why this is such a great thing, is because our guys can now focus on other areas and I don't feel like Bangerter is being neglected."
The Bangerter Highway runs through Taylorsville from 4700 South through 6200 South, which Cottam noted is in "my understanding, the busiest stretch of Bangerter Highway."
Both state and local law enforcers also point to the evolution of the Bangerter Highway, which Rapich says has essentially become a western belt route for the freeway system in Salt Lake County.
"It's becoming a limited-access, elevated interchange structure to where it has become very much a freeway system. Mountain View Corridor, even though it's not there yet, is designed to be exactly that, and it will evolve to that as well," he said.
In order to become the lead in enforcement on the Bangerter, Rapich said his office went to the governor and lawmakers a little over two years ago to ask for additional funding to hire more troopers. Once the money was secured to hire about 16 new troopers, it took about a year to train them. And starting July 1, they will start their enforcement full time.
The transition will also include the creation of a new operations section for the UHP and a new office on the west side of the valley to oversee the Bangerter Highway and eventually the Mountain View Corridor, which Rapich says will be the next transition.
"This isn't just about enforcement, it's about collaboration, coordination and service," the colonel said. "This shows what's possible when state and local agencies collaborate with purpose, and we're grateful to our local partners who've helped make this transition possible."
