One year ago the Tooele County Road Department angered residents of Rush Valley when they churned up the blacktop on the Pony Express Trail from Five-Mile Pass to Faust.
The work turned 12 miles of Faust Road into a compact dirt and gravel route.
Today, residents of Faust and Vernon have cautiously accepted the new road conditions.
Although they admit the new road surface isn’t as bad as they thought it would be, they would like their hard surface road back.
“It seems like a step backwards,” said Kent Sagers, who was the mayor of Vernon at the time Faust Road was being pulverized back to gravel.
For the 240 residents of Vernon, and the landowners in the Last Chance Resort west of Faust, Faust Road was their direct connection with civilization on the south end of Salt Lake County and the north end of Utah County.
Without Faust Road, Vernon residents must drive north on SR-36 until they reach the intersection of SR-36 and SR-73 and then travel east on SR-73. The trip from Vernon to Redwood Road along that route is 57 miles.
However, turning east onto Faust Road just north of Vernon reduces the trip to 39 miles, a reduction of 18 miles or 46 percent.
Many Vernon residents use Faust Road to get to Utah and Salt Lake counties for shopping, work and visiting family, Sagers said.
Property owners in Last Chance Resort also use Faust Road to commute to their homes and property in the resort, which has a man-made lake for water-skiing, according to Cody Larkin, a Last Chance Resort property owner.
Residents feared a loose gravel and poorly maintained surface would force them to take the longer route.
Rod Thomspon, director of the Tooele County Road Department, said cost and safety issues made the grinding up of Faust Road the only practical alternative.
“The road was not safe,” he said. “The road surface outlived its life and has deteriorated beyond a safe condition.”
Complicating the road repair was the lack of proper underlying road base to support a new asphalt surface.
Faust Road was a dirt and gravel road until 15 years ago, when the county applied a donated asphalt product directly to the road surface.
The same product was used to pave a three-mile stretch of Lookout Pass Road that runs west of SR-36 towards Last Chance Resort.
“We knew the surface would be temporary, but I don’t think anybody thought 15 years ahead to what they would do when the surface wore out and the residents in the area had grown used to a hard surface,” Thompson said.
He insists grinding up Faust Road had nothing to do with the county’s financial problems.
“We would have recommended grinding up Faust Road even if we had all the money in the world,” said Thompson. “The road surface had deteriorated to the point it was unsafe and continuing to patch the road was not feasible or safe.”
Thompson estimated the county spent $40,000 to grind up Faust Road. If the county repaved Faust Road, the first step would be to mill up the old surface, he said.
Bruce Thomas, current mayor of Vernon, doesn’t believe the road was beyond repair.
“The road did not appear to be in that bad of shape,” he said. “I think they could have just patched the road.”
The new compact dirt and gravel road is a passable alternative, according to Thomas.
“Of course, we would like our paved road back,” he said. “But the road as it is isn’t as bad as originally feared. It’s not loose gravel. You drive a reasonable speed on it, but it all depends on how well the road is maintained in the future.”
Larkin said the new surface is dusty, which causes a safety problem when the dust cloud kicked up from a vehicle traveling the opposite direction obscures the view of drivers.
“If we’re pulling a trailer, we will go the long way around,” he said. “Otherwise we take Faust Road.”
Larkin, like Thomas, is not ready to put his seal of approval on the new road until he sees how the county maintains it.
“Yes, pavement was better,” Larkin said. “It’s too early to tell how the new road surface will hold up. Right now the road is in pretty good shape, but will the county maintain the road and treat it three times a year with magnesium chloride to protect the surface and control dust like they promised?”
Paving Faust Road presents an economic problem, according to Thompson.
Thompson gives a ballpark $500,000 cost per mile to rebuild Faust Road, including excavating and installing road base and then covering the road base with an appropriate thickness of asphalt.
In 2014 Tooele County won’t be making any more gravel roads, according to Thompson.
The county recently completed phase one of South Mountain Road from SR-36 south of the Tooele County Detention Center running west to the Tooele Army Depot property line.
South Mountain Road, which is being constructed using money provided by Rocky Mountain Power and businesses in the area, will eventually connect SR-36 with the Mormon Trail Road.
Using a state road improvement grant, the county is also rebuilding approximately one mile of the Mormon Trail Road.
Work will also begin soon on rebuilding three blocks of Lakeview Road in Stansbury Park, according to Thompson.