Traffic on the 'Iowa String' dangerous for Corinne drivers

By Amy Macavinta

April 28, 2008 | BOX ELDER County -- Imagine this: you and your children are on your way home from school. You are traveling on a two-lane state highway, and you stop at an intersection to make a left-hand turn, but there is a mile-long stream of traffic coming toward you. While you are waiting to make the dash across traffic, you look in the rear-view mirror and see a semi truck racing up behind you.

While residents of Corinne are dealing with this scenario on a daily basis, Box Elder County commissioners have set their sights on other priorities. Commissioner Jay Hardy went so far as to say that the increased traffic on State Route 13 and State Route 83, and the problems associated with it, are acceptable because "that is how it used to be."

Hardy said UDOT gave Box Elder county $100,000 in grant money to assemble a group to study the infrastructure needs in the county within the next five years.

"Our No. 1 concern in the county is the Iowa String," said Hardy.

The Iowa String is a county road that runs north and south from Tremonton to Corinne. Formally, the road is 6800 West on the county owned portion, and 1000 West within Tremonton city limits.

According to 79-year-old Dawn Reeder, a lifelong resident of Corinne, the Iowa String got its name from a "string" of two-story frame homes built up that road. Reeder said his father, Adolph Reeder, told him there had been a lot of people who had come from Iowa who built these homes and farmed nearby. The residents of Corinne were typically Mormon families on modest incomes, so the homes on the Iowa String were something of a novelty.

Reeder believes there is only one home still standing as testament to that era, and the county sees a whole new era altogether.

According to an article in the Box Elder News Journal, county commissioners said they could see the day when the Iowa String would need to be a five-lane highway to accommodate the industry that would come over time.

With that in mind, the county and other local officials met with the Utah Department of Transportation two weeks ago with a proposition for the state to assume ownership of the Iowa String Road.

According to an article in the Box Elder News Journal, Region 1 director flatly rejected the county's generous offer, noting that the state is barely able to maintain its existing roads.

Routes 13 and 83 run east-west through Corinne. Route 13 veers to the right towards Bear River City, and route 83 continues west towards Promontory. It intersects with the Iowa String approximately five miles out of city limits. Both highways are state roads, and as such, the county has no jurisdiction. But, they can petition UDOT for improvements.

When asked about prioritizing the long-term needs of a road that is only now seeing a trickle of growth versus the more immediate need for safety on a road already owned by the state, Hardy minimized the hazard.

"That road used to be the 'interstate' and the rate of travel is has just gone back to what it was [in the mid-sixties]," he said. "There were places where the traffic was so thick you had to come to a complete stop, waiting for traffic to clear before you could make a left-hand turn."

Incidentally, there will be some changes made to the highway configuration later this spring. Route 83 splits from route 13 in a dangerous Y intersection that has been on UDOT's to-do list for several years. Project Manager Marge Rasmussen said a project to reroute the highway will be advertised for bids within the next couple of weeks. Part of this project will include the addition of turn lanes on route 83, where it intersects 4800 West.

Bryan Davis is manager of the Bear River Valley Co-op, located at the point where the two highways converge. He believes this plan is just a Band-aid and does not adequately solve the traffic problems Corinne faces.

"I think overall Corinne is getting the shaft," he said. "Everyone's got an agenda and no one's on the same page."

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