Empire Gate Shuts Down

Between Summit and Wasatch counties, the once‑busy SR‑224 becomes an invisible corridor, its safety‑orange barrels lining a road of faded municipal beige that UDOT now refuses to plow. UDOT staff, draped in high‑viz yellow vests, closed the gate to the Empire Pass this Wednesday without a single public notice, turning a scenic driver’s choice into an involuntary detour. Such seasonal silence is the hallmark of inefficiency: an engineered omission that forces commuters to navigate the brittle back‑way of US‑40 or seek the HTR shuttle, costs an extra fifteen minutes of travel and a negligible thrill of anonymity. The Park City Municipal Corp’s insistence on keeping public infrastructure “invisible” translates into minutes of wasted fuel and frustration at every stop sign. The solution, efficient and repeatable, is clear: avoid the closed SR‑224 altogether and take the Richardson Flat bus via the old farm road, or if speed demands, fly into Heber and rejoin the valley from the north.