Overview

Over the past few decades local and regional planners have identified the need for  a new northern corridor in Washington County between Interstate 15 and State Route 18 to address east-west travel demand for decades to come. Such passage is also calculated to reduce congestion on the local municipal and county area transportation systems.

Background

Part of the corridor would pass through federal lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).  A federal law, called the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009 (OPLMA), instructed the BLM, in consultation with the State, Washington County, St. George City and others, to identify a northern transportation route through the federal land within three years.  That same law designated a conservation area on BLM managed land in the area.  

Seven years ago, UDOT applied for a grant of right-of-way from the BLM to build a new transportation route across the federal land.  In October of the following year, the BLM initiated a federal environmental study.  The decision to grant the right-of-way through the federal land was issued in 2021.   

As a result of a lawsuit filed in Washington D.C. against the federal government by primarily out- of-state private interest groups BLM, under the previous administration, offered to revisit the decision to issue the right-of-way by conducting a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS).  In December of 2024, BLM issued a new Record of Decision for the Northern Corridor, which terminated UDOT’s right-of-way and “endorsed” the Red Hills Parkway Expressway Alternative.  In August  of 2025 UDOT provided the BLM with additional documentation of the technical and economic infeasibility of the Red Hills Parkway Expressway Alternative to support the concerns it raised in its June 2025 request that the BLM reconsider its termination of the right-of-way grant. reconsider the grant and the original preferred alignment.