Spring City road plan offers both good and bad news

Immediate maintenance needed to repair ‘poor condition’ roads

SPRING CITY—A 120-page transportation master plan, adopted by the Spring City Council at its August meeting, had good news and bad news.

What most residents would probably regard as good news is that the city is small, rural, safe and uncongested and isn’t expected to change dramatically over the next 30 years.

At one point, when the plan was being developed, there was talk about building a new road, which opponents said would be as wide as Highland Drive in Salt Lake City, looping around the south end of the city.

That concept never made it into the final plan. “Where Spring City is a small, rural city disconnected from a main thoroughfare with limited historical and anticipated growth, an expansive network of collectors and arterials is unnecessary,” the plan states.

The plan also states, “This master plan…does not designate additional arterial or collector routes. This is because all local roads function as local roads and are anticipated to continue functioning as such.”

The bad news is that because Spring City historically has had very limited funds, it hasn’t kept up with road maintenance. While some roads are in “excellent” or “good” condition, the average rating among all roads is “poor,” which means, according to the plan, “immediate rehabilitation is required to prevent a road from becoming unrepairable.”

In the last fiscal year, Spring City received $142,265 under the Utah Class C roads program. The money represents a mix of federal and state funds. But the plan shows that by the time the city addresses the needed road repairs, the cost could approach $10 million.

Spring City has just 23.8 miles of streets and roads, including 17.3 miles of paved, 5.3 miles of gravel and 1.2 miles of dirt roads. As of 2025, the city covered just 4.2 square miles and had 1,057 residents. That translated to a fairly high density. For instance, the city has more people per square mile than Ephraim.

An analysis in 2023 of traffic on 14 roads in Spring City showed modest traffic, ranging from 46 vehicles per day on 500 East and 62 per day on 400 East to 1,091 per day on Main Street and 1,961 on S.R. 117 heading north toward Mt. Pleasant.

The master plan notes that “passenger vehicles contribute very little (to) pavement wear,” while heavy trucks and buses can generate between 0.5 and 4 times as much wear as the average car.

“A roadway with lower traffic volumes but a higher percentage of heavy trucks can experience more pavement damage than a roadway with higher volumes and fewer trucks,” the plan states.

At the same time the city counted all traffic on its roads, it counted the average number of trucks. Four roads reported more than 10 trucks per day: 400 North had 17; 400 South had 22; S.R. 117 heading north had 46; and S.R. 117 heading west had 54.

At the time the plan was adopted, a resident asked if 700 East was being designated as a truck route. A council member responded that 700 East south of Center Street would not be a truck route, but a truck route might be developed on 700 East north of Center Street heading toward Mt. Pleasant. That road is presently unpaved and goes through a mostly undeveloped area.

The plan states, “All trucks that do not need to access commercial or residential locations should not travel on local roads.”

An appendix to the plan shows routes that can be used if a truck needs to get to a residential or commercial area. In such instances, the plan states, “The city wants trucks to use consistent corridors as designated on the map.”

Generally, drivers on Spring City roads comply with speed limits. Transportation planners typically base speed-limit reports on the 85th percentile, meaning 85 percent of drivers measured were at or below the posted speed limit and 15 percent were above it.

In a measure taken in 2023 at the same time as vehicle counts, based on the 85th percentile, speeds on nearly all roads were at, below or a couple of miles per hour above the posted speed limit.

The exceptions were 500 East headed south, where the speed limit was 25 mph but the average speed at the 85th percentile was 37 mph; Spring Canyon Road, where the speed limit was 25 mph and the average speed at the 85th percentile was 32 mph; S.R. 117 headed north, with a speed limit of 35 mph but an 85th-percentile speed of 47 mph; and S.R. 117 headed west, with a speed limit of 45 mph but an 85th-percentile speed of 54 mph.

Another measure of how well roads in a town are working is level of service (LOS). The LOS for a particular road is rated from “A,” for free-flowing traffic, through “F,” for severe congestion.

Spring City got straight A’s on the 14 roads studied. Even looking ahead 30 years, the plan states all roads are expected to maintain an “A,” or free-flowing, rating.

The observance of most speed limits combined with the lack of congestion may help explain the town’s exceptional safety record.

UDOT keeps a record of every automobile crash in the state. The figures show that in the 15 years from 2010 to 2025, there were only 14 collisions on Spring City roads, an average of one crash per year. Six crashes resulted in injuries, less than one per year, and none were fatal.

A chart at the end of the plan narrative lists four short-term and three long-term transportation projects and generally identifies the target roads. Projects range from chip sealing roads in good condition at a cost of about $230,400 in 2026 dollars to widening Main Street, including adding curb, gutter and sidewalk from 300 North to the city limit. That job is estimated at $2.28 million in 2026 dollars.

The chart shows the cost of all projects can be expected to rise the longer the projects are delayed.