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South Jordan blocks vehicle traffic to Daybreak’s Barbieland for ‘public safety’

The closure comes after local and national media coverage of the ‘Barbie’-themed neighborhood.

  | Oct. 20, 2023, 10:18 p.m.
| Updated: Oct. 21, 2023, 3:49 p.m.

Getting to Barbieland in Daybreak has become more difficult.

The City of South Jordan has ordered road closures to the Daybreak community’s The Island neighborhood — where residents have decorated 18 of their houses for Halloween around a “Barbie” theme — because of a “public safety issue.” The closure was announced Friday in a post on the city’s official Facebook account.

On Friday afternoon, the Facebook post noted, road closure signs were to be added, to allow only residents to drive into The Island. Police will be monitoring the area, and parking violators outside The Island will be towed or ticketed, the post said.

“Since these are public roads with public parking, the City is limited by law on what it can do to intervene unless someone is breaking the law OR it becomes a public safety issue,” the city’s post read. “The City has been monitoring the situation and has determined that the traffic situation has now become a public safety issue due to the potential inability of public safety services to reach the residents on the Island.”

Rachael Van Cleave, a spokesperson for the city, said the closure will last as long as the public safety issue does.

Van Cleave said the decision came after “Barbieland, in particular, went viral, and we got international news coverage, a ton of media attention. … We’re getting a lot of people coming in with motor vehicle traffic.”

The city’s fire and police departments, Van Cleave said, determined there might be issues reaching residents in an emergency. The Island, situated in Oquirrh Lake, has one main road with only two entry and exit points, she explained.

The traffic closure isn’t solely because of the Barbieland display, Van Cleave said, but it was “very timely. … Our residents are awesome. They love to go out for holidays and we’ve built this reputation in our city for doing that — in particular, the neighborhoods in and around Daybreak.”

Terra Spencer, another one of the Barbieland neighbors, said Friday they were outside in costume for another TV interview when they heard about the closure — and they all got excited.

“We’ve been trying to solve the traffic problem since this all took off. It’s probably been the biggest issue that we face,” she said. “We’re trying to be courteous towards [other neighbors].”

Spencer said the group had a meeting last week to figure out how to mitigate the traffic problem. They tried to block one side of the street to parking, which helped with crowd control, she said.

The group wants Barbieland to be safe for everyone, Spencer said. “Barbieland is supposed to be a very fun thing,” she said. “The whole purpose of it was for us to come together as a neighborhood and do something fun, have a great time together.”

(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) A home is decorated in a “Classic Barbie” theme from the movie “Barbie” in a section of Daybreak that has collectively created a Barbieland-themed community for Halloween on Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023.

(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) A home is decorated in a “Classic Barbie” theme from the movie “Barbie” in a section of Daybreak that has collectively created a Barbieland-themed community for Halloween on Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023.

Van Cleave said that people who want to visit can find public parking on the larger public roads outside The Island. Also, she said, South Jordan has two TRAX stations, so people can take public transit to the city and walk to The Island between now and Halloween.

“For people who are local, I would suggest taking their bike, because that’s going to be generally more safe for everybody [and] will help alleviate a lot of that congestion,” she said.

This isn’t the first time a Halloween display has brought crowds to The Island. Amy Williams, whose home is decorated as “Midge’s Dream House” among the Barbieland displays, told The Tribune that a Harry Potter-themed house, “Hogwarts on the Island,” caused traffic problems last year.

Neighbors said thousands of visitors came to see the “Hogwarts” house, in the neighborhood behind Barbieland. “It was just kind of mayhem on Halloween,” Williams said.

People parked on the bridge that leads to The Island, Williams said, blocking off the road — to the point where her kids had to park a distance away and walk into the neighborhood. Even on Sunday, they couldn’t get in to get their backpacks.

After last year’s excitement, Williams said that this year, “It’s like, ‘Well, if everybody’s coming anyway, why don’t we?’ You let more people get in on the fun.”