- A new Bangerter Highway interchange at 2700 West will open Monday in Bluffdale.
- The Utah Department of Transportation closed eastbound 13400 South on Friday to prepare for the Monday opening.
BLUFFDALE — On the south end of the Salt Lake Valley, part of a major road project is coming to an end.
A new interchange on Bangerter Highway at 2700 West in Bluffdale will open on Monday, the Utah Department of Transportation announced. Nearby, on the same day, east-west traffic will again be able to move on 13400 South in Riverton across a new interchange that opened in July.
Both those interchanges once had stoplights. Now, traffic on that part of the highway will move freely.
"So excited," said Susie McAllister, a Herriman resident who has waited more than a year for construction in the area to end. "It's been a pain just trying to go anywhere."
UDOT spokesman John Gleason said a few more interchanges on Bangerter Highway that are still under construction — at 4700 South and 9800 South — will open by the end of next month.
"We're really heading into the final stretch here now," Gleason told KSL-TV.
Once all the interchange projects are completed, Gleason added, Bangerter Highway will have "free-flowing traffic" from I-15 in Draper to 4100 South in West Valley City.
"That's a time savings of about eight minutes when these interchanges are completed," Gleason said, "but it's also an increase in safety. When you take out those stoplights, you're improving safety by taking out those conflict points, and you're not going to have that intersecting traffic, which is huge."
For those who drive that area every day, it's welcome news.
"I mean, there's worse problems in the world," McAllister said, laughing, "but we'll be glad, though, when it's opened."
However, there is a little pain left. UDOT closed eastbound travel on 13400 South on Friday at 10 p.m. for a few days of prep work before the road opens completely to traffic on Monday at 5 a.m.
