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The West Davis Freeway is finally a reality after decades in the making.
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Great Salt Lake Collaborative
Adam Small, KSL NewsRadio
The West Davis Freeway is finally a reality after decades in the making.
Editor’s note: This article was published through the Great Salt Lake Collaborative, a journalism solutions initiative that partners with news, education and media organizations to help educate people about the plight of the Great Salt Lake—and what can be done to to change before it’s too late. Read all our stories at greatsaltlakenews.org.
SYRACUSE, Utah — Navigating western Daviess County has been a lot easier over the past month. That’s how long the new West Davis Freeway (SR 177) is open.
This has made commuting from work to home much easier for people living in the area, as well as employees and visitors to Antelope Island.
“The thought was, ‘man, when this is done, it’s going to be a lot easier to access from Salt Lake,'” said Wendy Wilson, manager of Antelope Island State Park.
Wilson told KSL NewsRadio that many park employees commute from the Salt Lake area. The traffic required people to take I-15 to Antelope Drive in Layton, which is seven miles from the park entrance lanes.
Great Salt Lake Collaborative
Drivers can now connect to West Davis from I-15 and make a straight shot to the Antelope Drive exit just over two miles from the trailhead.
Wilson said the new route saves drivers “ten minutes easily, sometimes more depending on what the traffic looks like on I-15.”
In addition to an easier commute, Wilson believes the new freeway will directly affect the number of visitors to the park. Both now and in the future.
“Our attendance is definitely going to increase,” Wilson said. As for how much, Wilson said only time will tell.
History of a visit to Antelope Island
Wilson has been working on Antelope Island since 2011. That year, the park had 280,000 visitors. In 2023, the park has triple that amount, well over a million.
The skyrocketing visitor numbers, Wilson said, can be attributed to Utah’s population boom as well as more ways to get to the park. She also believes that education and people learning about the Great Salt Lake’s historically low water levels have led more people to see the disappearing lake for themselves.
The lake reached its lowest level in recorded history in November 2022. It then rose about 5.5 feet after the record water year of 2023. Today, after the summer evaporation and tumultuous start to 2024, it is still at about 4.5 feet higher than its record low.
Wilson believes some visitors have come to the lake in the past few years thinking they needed to see it “before it’s gone.” While this is a very real concern for people living along the Wasatch Front, state legislators and water managers are working tirelessly to find solutions for the lake. And not only to save it, but also to preserve it for the future.
Their work has two purposes. First, to preserve an iconic part of Utah’s identity. Second, lawmakers want to prevent, as much as possible, a cloud of toxic dust from the exposed lake bed from entering the lungs of millions of Utahns and wreaking havoc on an entire ecosystem.
While the boost from Mother Nature over the past year has been a welcome sight for visitors and for Wilson, she said she hopes people who first visited the lake to see it at its worst will visit again. when the day comes when the Great Salt Lake is back to a healthy level.
“The difference is astounding … incredible and awe-inspiring,” Wilson said.
