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A detour sign is shown on 2100 North in Lehi looking west toward Redwood Road on Monday, Nov. 18. 2024.

Curtis Booker, Daily Herald

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A cluster of poles sits at the intersection of 2100 North and Redwood Road on Monday, Nov. 18. 2024. The poles will serve as support for a future bridge connection from 2100 North to Mountain View Corridor.

Curtis Booker, Daily Herald

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Road crews are shown at a construction site at Mountain View Corridor and state Route 73 on Monday, Nov. 18, 2024.

Curtis Booker, Daily Herald

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Piles of dirt sit along a portion of 2100 North in Lehi on Monday, Nov. 18, 2024, amid work to construct a new freeway.

Curtis Booker, Daily Herald

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For drivers in northwest Utah County, sightings of orange construction cones, detour signs and heavy machinery are pretty much the norm lately, most notably in west Lehi, Saratoga Springs and portions of Eagle Mountain, where work is being done on the Mountain View Corridor project.

The first of many tasks on the list for the Utah Department of Transportation is connecting 2100 North in Lehi to Porter Rockwell Boulevard near Herriman and South Jordan. That project will add 4 miles of freeway along Mountain View Corridor and aims to act as an alternative to Redwood Road or Interstate 15 for travel between Utah and Salt Lake counties.

Construction began in April and, according to UDOT Region 3 spokesperson Wyatt Woolley, the project is right on schedule.

“We’ve moved a lot of earth,” he noted. “We’ve put in quite a few structures as well, also pedestrian and biking trail bridges as well.”

Piles of dirt amounting to the size of 10 Rice-Eccles stadium fields can be seen for miles stretching from 3600 West to 2100 North in Lehi westward along Mountain View Corridor in Saratoga Springs, where the imprints of future freeway entrance ramps are visible.

As Utah prepares for winter, crews are working hard to complete one particular section of the soon-to-be freeway ahead of tricky conditions caused by snow and ice.

Southbound traffic on Mountain View Corridor was shifted to a temporary road for about a quarter of a mile between Redwood Road and Harvest Moon Lane in Saratoga Springs, allowing crews to construct a new frontage road.

The configuration has led to a tight squeeze for drivers along one lane of travel for those going east and west.

However, UDOT wants to eliminate any potential hazards from the head-to-head driving arrangement.

“They’ve currently been pouring concrete and things, and their goal is to have that frontage road, which we closed off, reopened sometime in the next couple weeks,” Woolley told the Daily Herald.

Drivers won’t necessarily notice a change in the route, aside from the newly installed roadway and pavement and more room.

“It’ll go back to the way it was, and it should be a lot faster, smoother, and it’ll allow for a lot more traffic to go through,” Woolley added.

Additionally, work is underway on four new bridges, three of which will carry traffic once a configuration shift occurs.

Some residents living in the area have taken to social media asking about the row of poles that sits at the intersection of 2100 North and Redwood Road.

UDOT says those will act as part of the support infrastructure for the future bridge that will connect 2100 North with Mountain View Corridor over Redwood Road.

Further west, near the border of Saratoga Springs and Eagle Mountain, traffic improvement efforts are underway at the intersection of Mountain View Corridor and Cory Wride Highway (state Route 73).

“That will allow for more traffic flow as well and a better intersection,” said Woolley, who also noted crews have faced some challenges with paint striping due to the colder weather.

Drivers are asked to have patience in the construction areas or otherwise use alternate routes.

“If you don’t need to go down Mountain View, I would take Redwood Road, for example, or some other way, because we will be working in these areas for a while,” Woolley said.

Once winter approaches, UDOT will focus its efforts on pedestrian bridges, overpasses and other infrastructure needs that the weather conditions permit so the project can progress on schedule.

“What we can do is we can keep working on earth work, and we can keep working on structures and utilities, stuff that the public probably won’t see as it won’t be as visible,” Woolley said.

The project phase addressing 2100 North in Lehi to Porter Rockwell Boulevard is anticipated to be complete in early 2026.

From there, crews will begin to work eastward along 2100 North, constructing a freeway between Mountain View Corridor and I-15.

A handful of other projects are planned or being studied as part of nearly $1.4 billion in funding from the Utah Legislature to address growth concerns in northwest Utah County, aiming to ease traffic woes.