Cottonwood Heights • A small, blue Subaru already kitted out with a ski rack pulled out of the October rain and into one of the two lines of cars passing through the Utah Department of Transportation’s Cottonwood maintenance shed Thursday.
A big man in a neon yellow “Cottonwoods Crew” vest knelt by each tire. One by one, he looked them over. Then he produced a small gauge. Placed atop the tires, it consistently registered a tread depth exceeding 5/32nds of an inch. So, he grabbed a UDOT snowflake sticker from a stack piled on a nearby table, peeled off the backing, slapped it inside the car’s front window and sent the driver on his way.
The entire process took little more than a minute. It could save drivers hours in the Cottonwood canyons.
The stickers are a key cog in UDOT’s multi-agency plan to step up enforcement of the tire traction law in Big and Little Cottonwood Canyon. Officially unveiled Thursday, the $400,000 initiative also entails instituting traction checks in both canyons — at times ahead of storms — and increasing ticketing for illegally parked cars.
By cutting down on accidents, spinouts and stuck cars, the agencies involved hope to improve the flow of traffic on the oft-congested State Route 190, which leads to Brighton and Solitude Mountain Resort, and SR 210, the avalanche-prone access to Alta Ski Area and Snowbird. Yet they caution that until they work out the kinks, powderhounds should plan to face delays.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) People line up to participate in the free and voluntary Cottonwood Canyon’s sticker distribution kick-off event to comply with traction devices required during severe weather this winter on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. The Utah Department of Transportation is partnering with local law enforcement from Cottonwood Heights and Sandy to increase traction law enforcement.
“We ask people to be patient. Be kind to each other,” Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera said. “This is new, and we’re not trying to hold people up. We’re trying to make sure they get to the canyons faster.”
Little Cottonwood Canyon drivers will encounter the traction checkpoint about a mile up the canyon at Gate A. Officers are expected to complete their inspections while cars remain in the road, said Jake Brown, UDOT’s Cottonwood canyons roadway operations supervisor. Those without adequate traction in place will be turned around into the dirt climbers’ lot on the north side of the road and sent back down the canyon. Brown said chains, snow socks and other temporary traction devices can be installed at the Alpenbock Loop parking lot at the base of the canyon.
Big Cottonwood Canyon, Brown said, “is a little trickier.” When traffic through that canyon backs up, it gums up the major intersection of Fort Union and Wasatch boulevards. He said the checkpoint will at first be positioned at the avalanche gate near the canyon’s mouth to start, but its location will likely need to be tweaked.
“Trying to find the sweet spot,” Brown said, “is going to be kind of big.”
Ski traffic extending into neighborhoods, in part, spurred officials to address congestion in the canyons. Sandy Mayor Monica Zoltanski said her phone “was hot” during the 2022-23 ski season, when Utah saw a record 903 inches of snowfall at Alta. Residents were fuming about leaving their homes to drop off their kids or go to work and not being able to return due to the backup of canyon traffic into their neighborhoods.
So on Feb. 13, 2023, officials from Sandy, Cottonwood Heights, Salt Lake County and UDOT gathered to hammer out a solution. A year later, legislators gave the plan some heft. They approved directing up to 2% of the state’s Cottonwood Canyons Transportation Investment Fund to pay for safety and traction-related initiatives in the canyons.
That comes out to about $400,000, according to Carlos Braceras, UDOT’s executive director. Braceras said the Sandy and Cottonwood Heights police departments will each receive $180,000 to pay overtime to their officers who work the traction checkpoints. The remaining $40,000 will go to the staff of Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera to increase patrols and ticketing of cars parked illegally in the canyons, which has also been deemed a factor in slowing traffic.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) People travel along Albion Basin Road in Little Cottonwood Canyon to check out the freshly fallen snow on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. UDOT will begin checking for traction devices prior to big storms, not only while they are in effect.
“For the longest time, we just didn’t have the resources to give the parking tickets,” Rivera said, “and now we’ve made it a priority because we do see where it impacts public safety.”
Also this year, Braceras said UDOT will experiment with preemptively requiring traction-law compliance. A major gripe of canyon drivers has been that UDOT doesn’t enact the traction law until the roads become dangerous. By then, cars ill-equipped to handle slippery and snowy conditions are already in the canyons and are likely to disrupt traffic when they try to get out.
Braceras said his agency doesn’t want to “cry wolf” and degrade the potency of the law by requiring traction devices when they aren’t needed. But the agency will take preventative steps when its fleet of forecasters indicates conditions will become dangerous.
“We’ll screw up,” Braceras admitted. “So we will have times where we’ll say, ‘We’re going to implement the traction law,’ and people will say, ‘Wait a minute, it never snowed.’ And we’ll have times we wish we did it.
“But we’re going to step out more than we have been.”
Without the traction stickers, though, all that effort may just create more headaches for canyon drivers.
A UDOT Cottonwood canyons sticker can be obtained for free between now and Feb. 28 from a multitude of tire and auto repair shops around the Salt Lake Valley. Eligible vehicles must be compliant with UDOT’s traction law standards with one exception: Instead of 2/32nds of an inch of tread, vehicles must have 5/32nds of an inch of tread. Other requirements are as follows:
Four-wheel-drive vehicles: Mud and snow (M+S) or “3-Peak Mountain Snowflake” (3PMSF, denoted by a snowflake inside a mountain outline).
Two-wheel-drive and front-wheel-drive vehicles: 3PMSF tires on all wheels or chains, snow socks or other traction devices.
Automobiles with the sticker displayed in their windshield will be waved through the checkpoint without having to stop. At issue, however, is that because both highways are two-lane roads, they’ll still have to wait for any stickerless cars ahead of them to be inspected before they can be on their way up the mountain.
It’s for that reason that, to a person, officials emphasized how critical it is for anyone who has even an inkling they might drive up the canyons this winter to get their vehicle checked. Some, including Solitude General Manager Amber Broadaway, hinted that they may provide perks for people who have a sticker.
“We are going to work internally to figure out how to support our staff and recognize our visitors who obtain the UDOT sticker,” Broadaway said in an email to the Tribune. “We encourage all winter mountain enthusiasts of the Cottonwoods to support this important program.
“And,” she added, “we remain hopeful that all the rental car agencies out of SLC airport will get on board with this program, too.”
On that front, Brown had good news. He said all but two rental agencies based out of the Salt Lake City International Airport planned to participate in the sticker program. Resorts will post participating rental car agencies on their websites, he said. Still, it would be prudent for Cottonwood canyons resort visitors to ensure their vehicle has a sticker before taking it off the lot.
The entire process is likely to take less than a minute.
