US 6 in Utah

According to watchtutorials, US 6 is a US Highway in the US state of Utah. The road forms an east-west route through the center of the state, from the Nevada border at Garrison through Delta and Price to the Colorado border at Cisco. The road is double-numbered with other highways for significant portions of the route, such as Interstate 70, US 50, US 89, and US 191. The route is 602 kilometers long.

Travel directions

US 6 on the Nevada border.

Just north of the hamlet of Garrison, US 50 in Nevada crosses the Utah border from Ely, also the boundary between the Pacific Time Zone and the Mountain Time Zone. On the border there is only a small gas station, after which a part of 130 kilometers without any village, and without any intersection with other roads follows through the deserted desert. The US 6 is double numbered here with the US 50. The landscape consists of a sand and rock desert with some mountain ranges. The road is lonely and has one lane in each direction. The road sometimes runs straight for tens of kilometers, and the first village is reached after more than 130 kilometers, namely Hinkley. This area consists of irrigated agricultural areas around the river Sevier. The village of Delta is the main town on the route in western Utah, and US 50 then exits toward Salina for a more direct route to I-70. Both roads come together again in eastern Utah.

US 6 then runs northeast through the Sevier Desert. In 120 kilometers you only pass through a few villages or hamlets. The road is quite high, at an altitude of about 1700 meters. At Santaquin, US 6 merges into Interstate 15, the highway from Las Vegas. You then pass through a greener area, with forests and agricultural fields. In the town of Spanish Fork, US 6 exits from I-15, then heads east. I-15 continues toward Salt Lake City. On the east side of Spanish Fork, US 89 merges from Provo for a short 20-mile double-numbering. Here you enter a much more mountainous area with high peaks.

US 89 then turns south towards Ephraim, and US 6 continues only through the Uinta National Forest. The road rises here to about 2200 meters, and at Helper the US 191 from Vernal merges, after which a double numbering arises. From Helper to Price, the US has 6 2×2 lanes, with a bypass for the town of Price. The landscape then becomes a bit more desert-like, and you come across a plateau. It then follows 100 kilometers south through the desert, with no villages on the route. To the east is a mountain area with Canyons, but US 6 runs over a relatively flat area. West of Green River, US 6 joins Interstate 70, the highway from central Utah to Denver. The US 50is already double-numbered with the I-70, creating a quadruple numbering. A little further, at Brendel, US 191 turns south toward Moab, and I-70, US 6, and US 50 join together east for the remainder of its route through Utah. US 6 in Colorado then continues to Grand Junction and Denver.

History

US 6/50 west of Delta.

Route numbering

According to Citypopulationreview, US 6 was introduced in Utah in 1936, when the road was extended west from Greeley in Colorado to Long Beach in California. In eastern Utah, between the border with Colorado and Spanish Fork, US 6 ran together with the existing US 50. The section from Santaquin to Nevada did follow a new route.

In the 1950s, US 50 was extended south from US 40 to the full route of US 6. In 1976, US 50 was moved further south on the then-completed I-70, leaving the US 6 again partly formed an individual route.

Asphalting of the US 6

In the 1920s almost no part of the road could be driven at a higher speed. In 1927 only a small part of Price was asphalted, as was the double numbering with US 91 between Spanish Fork and Santaquin. West of Delta it was a bad dirt road, as was much of the route east of Price. The introduction of US 6 came mainly after a lot of work had been done in the mid-1930s to asphalt the route in eastern Utah. In a few years the entire stretch from Spanish Fork to the border with Colorado was asphalted. In 1937 the road between Delta and Santaquin was still a gravel road and west of Delta a dirt road.

The section from Delta to Santaquin was paved in the late 1930s and shortly after World War II, with the final section surfacing between Jericho and Silver City in the latter half of the 1940s. The part west of Delta was not tackled until the early 1950s, with the route partly being constructed as a completely new connection. The original dirt road ran via the 1950 meter high Margum Pass (now Marjum Pass), around 1952 an approximately 80 kilometer long asphalt road was built further south. This was the third paved road between Utah and Nevada at the time.

Upgrades to US 6

US 6 east of Spanish Fork, the primary connection between I-15 and I-70.

US 6 eventually became a link on the route from Denver to Salt Lake City. The most upgraded section is between Price and American Fork, where sections have been upgraded to 2+1 lanes and some shorter sections to 2×2 lanes, partly over a new route. East of Green River, Interstate 70 has been constructed to the border with Colorado, the US 6 lifts on it.

The first upgrade was a five-mile upgrade to 2×2 lanes between Carbonville and Martin, just north of Price, which was commissioned about 1962. In the early 1980s, a 2×2 lane bypass was constructed at Price, a 10-mile stretch from the southeast side of Price to beyond Carbonville, which joined the four-lane section of the 1960s. Of this section, only the portion between the north side of Price and Carbonville had 2×2 lanes, but the Price bypass had three grade separations. In the 1980s and 1990s, the road was also widened to four lanes along Spanish Fork, but due to the many retail and businesses on the road, this part is less high-quality. Around 2000 the section between Wellington and Price was converted to a 5-lane road with center turn lanewidened.

Traffic intensities

Every day 440 vehicles cross the Nevada border, and the desolate stretch to Hinckley is very deserted with barely 500 vehicles per day. The section through Delta does have some traffic with 4,500 vehicles per day, but the section from Delta to Santaquin has only 300 vehicles per day on the quietest part. The road through Spanish Fork is somewhat busier with a maximum of 22,600 vehicles per day. The section toward Price has 6,600 vehicles due to some through traffic from I-70 toward Salt Lake City. The area around Price has a maximum of 12,000 vehicles per day, and 4,600 vehicles drive through the desert to I-70.