Provo Canyon Scenic Byway Corridor Management Plan Updated November 4, 2008 Produced by: The Provo Canyon Scenic Byway Corridor Management Plan Prepared for: The Provo Canyon Scenic Byway Corridor and Watershed Management Plan Steering Committee Central Utah Water Conservancy District U.S. Bureau of Reclamation City of Orem Utah County Health Department What is a corridor management plan? Federal Highway Administration Utah County Planning Department A corridor management plan is a Heber Valley Chamber of Commerce document that describes how local Utah Department of Transportation property owners, communities and Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District agencies will guide the byway over time Utah Division of Water Quality with the dual objectives of protection and Metro Water District of Salt Lake City promotion. The plan is a policy document Utah Division of Water Resources in that it is not required by the Federal Mountainland Association of Governments Highway Administration that the plan be Utah Division of Wildlife Resources adopted as a binding document- although Natural Resource Conservation Service some local governments do adopt the Utah Landmark Preservation, Inc. plan in some manner. North Fork Preservation Alliance Wasatch County Health Department While there are a defined set of topics Provo City Corporation that must be covered in a corridor Wasatch County Planning Department management plan (e.g., inventory of Provo River Water Users resources, visitor management strategies), there is no prescribed format for the Prepared by: plans. The Federal Highway Mountainland Association of Governments, Administration encourages byway groups Orem, Utah to design plans that fit local needs. BIO/WEST, Inc. Logan Utah Whiteman & Taintor, Boulder, Colorado Why prepare a corridor management GEO/Graphics, Inc., Logan, Utah plan? The Sear-Brown Group, Salt Lake City, Utah A corridor management plan is a prerequisite for applying for the national This document and planning process was scenic byway designation. Therefore, if funded in part by a grant you want national designation, you must from the U.S. Department of Transportation prepare a plan. Federal Highway Administration. What is the National Scenic Byway Program? The National Scenic Byways program was created by Congress in 1991 as part of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Act. It was reauthorized in 1996 under the Transportation Efficiency Act. It is designed to provide a tool for both promoting and protecting America’s special roadways. It is both an economic development tool and a community character projection tool; It cannot be used solely for just one of those purposes. The two need to be linked together. The idea is to encourage travelers to explore America and thus strengthen local economies, but to do all of this in a way that ensure that these roads and their special qualities will be available to future generations. The National Scenic Byway program has two components: designation and grants. If a road meets the criteria and successfully completes the nomination process, it is then a National Scenic Byway. There is also a higher-status designation of All-American Road, which is given to roads that are destinations unto themselves and are prepared to handle larger numbers of visitors. As of today, there are 53 National Scenic Byways and All- American Roads in the United States. A new round of designation is underway and will be announced in the fall. Each year, the program also awards grants to state byway programs and to individual byways. The grants can be used to develop corridor management plans, for marketing activities, interpretation, resource management, signage, and visitor facilities. Table of Contents 1. Map identifying the limits of the corridor 2. Map identifying the intrinsic qualities of the corridor 3. Assessment of the intrinsic qualities 4. Maintaining and enhancing intrinsic qualities. 5. Responsible agencies, individuals and schedule of Review 6. Maintaining intrinsic qualities while accommodating Existing and new development accommodation & enhancement 7. Public participation 8. Safety record of the highway and deficiencies 9. Accommodate commerce while maintaining traffic flow 10. Minimizing intrusions to the visitor 11. Outdoor advertising control 12. Signage plan 13. Marketing the scenic byway 14. Roadway modifications and maintaining intrinsic qualities 15. Plans to interpret the significant resources of the scenic byway What is a scenic byway? A scenic byway is a road given special designation by a state and/of the federal government for its unusual qualities. Typically, these qualities are scenic in nature, but they may also be recreational, natural, historical, cultural or archeological. Once designated at the state level, the road is featured on state tourism maps. (Provo Canyon is already a Utah State Scenic Byway.) If the road achieves National Scenic Byway status- this is the Federal designation- then the road will be marketed nationally and internationally as part of the National Scenic Byway System. State and National Scenic Byways are eligible for grants from the National Scenic Byways Program. Most communities seeking scenic byway designation for their roads are doing this to both promote the road and to more- carefully manage the qualities that make the road special. Overview of the Scenic Byway The Provo Canyon Scenic Byway is 22 miles long and runs from Orem, Utah, to Heber City, Utah, on U.S. Highway 189 and SR113 Beginning in the south, the byway starts at the mouth of Provo Canyon in Orem. The landscape transitions immediately from a mixed residential and commercial area into the undeveloped beginnings of the canyon. The road curves gently as it climbs steadily from an elevation of 4,800 feet above sea level. The byway’s overall landscape consists of three basic elements: the canyon experience, the reservoir experience, and the valley experience. The first 9 miles of the road are the true canyon: the mouth to Deer Creek Dam. The next 8 miles moves between the shore of Deer Creek Reservoir and gently rolling sagebrush-covered hills. The final 5 miles currently travel along Route 113 passes through a more-varied farm landscape, past the Soldier Hollow Olympic site, through two small towns, and finally through historic residential and commercial sections of Heber City, ending in the city’s historic downtown. Hold It! What are the strings? What are the regulations? The National Scenic Byways Program is very unusual: It has almost no strings attached. It is managed by the Federal Highway Administration and the state Departments of Transportation or Tourism. It is a grass roots program, meaning that local communities decide on whether to make a road scenic byway. The only condition for the National Scenic Byway designation is that no new billboards can be put up along a national scenic byway. There are no regulations with the program. There are no standards for how you must manage the road or the corridor. There are no regulations on the requirements on if or how you manage the landscape along the the road. To double check these statements, go to the National Scenic Byways website at www.byways.org to get program and legislative information. Or call the National Scenic Byways Resource Center in Duluth, MN, at 1-218-529-7551 or 1- 800-429-9297 x5. North view of wildflowers and mountains from Orem lookout. 3. The Corridor: An Assessment of intrinsic qualities Intrinsic Qualities Review Natural Qualities The following points summarize the highlights of this byway’s natural intrinsic qualities. The information presented in this section was summarized from the U.S. Highway 189 Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (HNTB 1989) and the Re-Evaluation of U.S. Highway 189 Utah Valley to Heber Valley Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (BIO/WEST 1995). Topography • The lower portion of the byway consists of a river canyon varying from 70 to 900 feet in width. Filled alluvial scars are visible in several places. The elevation begins at 4,830 feet at the canyon mouth. Canyon walls are gently sloping, with the exception of bluffs located on the northwestern side of the river near the canyon mouth. • The quality of the canyon from the mouth at Orem to Canyon Glen Park is of a mixed landscape and topography. The lower canyon contains both the meandering river bottom and rises and hummocks that often obscure distant views. • From Canyon Glen Park to Wildwood, the canyon walls close in and rise dramatically. As the elevation rises to 5,220 feet at Wildwood, the canyon walls draw closer to the viewer. • From Wildwood to the Deer Creek Dam (5,400 feet) the canyon is at its narrowest with steep mountainous terrain and rocky canyon walls, indicative of recent rapid uplift and correspondingly rapid erosion and downcutting. Ridges and mountains along the highway have elevations of 7,000 to 9,000 feet • The next portion of the byway above the dam is characterized by a broad grass-covered valley and low, rounded hills at elevations between 6,000 and 7,000 feet. Sagebrush and other high desert shrubs are the dominant species. • The final segment of the byway runs through an irrigated and fertile farming landscape south of Heber City. The land is largely flat with occasional volcanic cones that rise 100 to 200 feet above the valley. The Timpanogos Range frames the valley landscape to the south. Geology • Provo Canyon’s geologic history extends back 300 to 500 million years. Much of this geology can be seen in the canyon’s walls and road cuts. • The area continues to be active geologically through uplifts and faulting along with smaller scale erosion and landsliding. • Two categories of faults occur in Provo Canyon: thrust faults and normal faults. Normal faults are dominant in the lower canyon, while thrust faults define the upper canyon. The thrust faults • The byway opportunities related to geology are for interpretation.