BENJAMIN ZACK, Standard-Examiner file photo

HUNTSVILLE — Ogden Canyon and Upper Ogden Valley residents mingled with engineers from the Utah Department of Transportation during a Thursday open house designed to foster dialogue about how to improve safety on state Route 39.

The curving, narrow canyon road — one of three travel options that connect Ogden to the Upper Valley — leaves little room for driver error. And some improvements — such as improving sight distances — would take significant money, time and support to implement.

But Rob Wight, UDOT Region 1 director for Northern Utah, mentioned two things they can do in the near future to encourage safer travel: reduce speed limits and restrict the weight and length of trucks and vehicles that come into the canyon.

“The purpose of this meeting is to try to get feedback on those two items specifically,” Wight said. “We hope to have a decision by the end of the year, but it might take a little longer.”

Nathan Peterson, Region 1 deputy director for UDOT, said that improving line of sight is under consideration over the longer term.

Cathy McKitrick, Special to the Standard-Examiner

“Removal of rocks would require blasting or drilling or other means. But it could be trees, power poles, houses, buildings — several things in people’s line of sight up and down that canyon,” Peterson said. “So those are things we’re looking at … to improve sight around corners, over curves both vertically and horizontally to give people a little more time to see an obstacle in the road.”

Of the five traffic fatalities on this stretch of roadway since 2015, three happened just since July of this year, the most recent on Thursday when 20-year-old Salt Lake City resident Quincie Holman tried to pass in a no-passing zone near mile marker 10 and collided with another car head on.

Judy Macner and her daughter Ira Macner live near milepost 10 where the accident occurred.

Their mailbox sits across the road, and Ira said that “you’re essentially walking to your death if you want your junk mail.”

Thursday’s open house made them realize the complexity of the problem.

Cathy McKitrick, Special to the Standard-Examiner

“There’s no easy solution — and just a lot of bureaucracy, like with everything,” Ira Macner said. “And there’s no cure for being stupid.”

Jerry Burgess, an avid cyclist, lives with his wife, Kathy, near milepost 12 in Ogden Canyon.

“Our concern is the flow and the speed of vehicles, because for us to get out of our community onto the highway, we have to wait for a gap,” he said. “And because we’re on a double curve … it’s difficult to time it so you can get out without pulling out in front of anybody.”

Along with engineering, Todd Finlinson — Region 1 traffic engineer for UDOT — said that road safety also hinges on educating drivers and enforcing the law.

“You need all three of those to get a good, safe road,” Finlinson said.

Justin Anderson, Ogden City Public Works director, dropped in at the open house because the city has facilities in the canyon.

“I look at the accident that happened yesterday and the accident that happened this summer,” Anderson said. “The problem is that people have to take ownership of what they’re doing. When people make poor decisions it affects not only themselves but others.”

Rick Kearl lives in the Wildwood Community in Ogden Canyon and manages an email list that includes about 150 of his neighbors.

“We talk to the sheriff’s department all the time, and they say it’s more dangerous to enforce the law in the canyon than to just let people do what they’re doing because they have no place to pull people over,” Kearl said.

Kearl said he supports implementing a “photo cop” system where cameras would document traffic violations — something that is currently illegal in Utah.

“I have a lot of people who want to talk about getting in front of our legislators to see if we can change that,” Kearl said, noting that those who oppose using photo cop view it as “big brother watching everything you do.”

During the Open House, UDOT Region 1 Director Wight told Kearl that “it’s something UDOT would typically be supportive of.”

Mitch Shaw, UDOT spokesman, said that this past summer, UDOT installed rumble strips and restriped lane lines from the mouth of the canyon to the spillway (mileposts 9 to 13.9), along with new barrier through the Narrows (mileposts 9 to 9.9).

“It’s stronger and less likely to fall in the river if a car hits it,” Shaw said of the enhanced barricade.