OGDEN — Coming this summer: phase two of plans to upgrade the North Ogden Divide, the winding, mountainous road that links North Ogden and the Liberty area in the Ogden Valley.

Weber County commissioners on Tuesday gave contingent approval to $1.4 million in upgrades to the roadway, including the addition of a new asphalt overlay on the 4.5-mile road section. Guardrails will also be raised in light of the higher road surface brought on by the new 2-inch overlay, with some guardrail sections to be replaced.

The work is to be completed in June, when the entire road section is to be closed to accommodate the work. That, said Ashley Thoman, a roads engineer for Weber County, will allow the project to proceed “in a safe zone, without traffic moving by.”

As such, motorists who travel between the North Ogden area and the Ogden Valley via the divide will have to come up with alternative routes while work is underway. While county roads officials are planning a closure of the North Ogden Divide for the entire month of June, Thoman thinks the work should be done more quickly.

The roadway received $1.98 million in improvements in 2020 and the new series of improvements will complete the overhaul. “This project is the whipped cream on top of that, to finish it up. We’re glad to have it done,” said Commissioner Scott Jenkins.

As part of the work in 2020, numerous new sections of guardrail were added along the road, some shoulder areas were widened and 17 storm drains were installed to keep rainwater and melting snow off the roadway. Four retaining walls were also added to give more support to the road, which has steep drop-offs in some sections, while large rocks on the steep mountains overlooking the road were removed to minimize rockfall dangers.

Commissioner Gage Froerer singled out the addition of guardrail as part of the improvements. “The guardrails are critical. It’s fairly steep if you’ve taken a look over that bank at one time,” he said.

County officials had initially planned to complete the second phase of work last year. However, they held off in light of a Utah Department of Transportation bridge replacement project along the Ogden Canyon Road, or state Route 39, which lasted for much of 2021 into early 2022.

The North Ogden Divide and state Route 39 are key transit points between the Ogden Valley and the Ogden and North Ogden areas, and working on both roadways at once could have seriously hampered east-west traffic through the area.

A study of the North Ogden Divide commissioned by the county and publicly released in 2019 identified $6.82 million in needed upgrades to the roadway, big and small. The two phases of work, however, won’t implement all the fixes suggested in that study.

Granite Construction of Watsonville, California, handled the first phase of work and will also handle the coming phase.

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