The Road Ahead

After inheriting 179 miles of poorly maintained roads, Millcreek has struggled to keep up. Over the past decade, the city has used pavement preservation treatments whenever possible. However, funding from the gas tax keeps dropping as vehicles improve in fuel efficiency, and road treatments keep getting more expensive due to rising inflation. Fewer roads are treated each year as a result. In 2024 and 2025, the city council allocated $1 million from the general fund to help plug the hole and band-aid some deteriorating roads. Despite this additional funding and winning some grants to help, cracks and potholes in our roads persist. Residents rightly feel frustrated, feeling that the road treatment is inadequate or that they've been neglected.  

We want to improve every single road in Millcreek, but with our current funding levels, it will take more than 50 years to address all of them, and that's only if we can keep up on maintenance treatments! We're running at a pace where the condition of our roads has passed their lifespan. The current path is unsustainable.

For decades, Millcreek was an unincorporated part of Salt Lake County, and that meant our roads were largely at the mercy of county priorities. Unincorporated areas like Millcreek were left with less attention, fewer resources, and budgets that stayed flat year after year, even as inflation climbed and traffic steadily wore down our streets.

When Millcreek incorporated, residents celebrated the promise of local control. But we also inherited a tough reality: 179 linear miles of aging pavement and a maintenance backlog built up over decades. It didn’t take long for road conditions to become one of the most common frustrations in our community—potholes multiplying, asphalt cracking, and surfaces deteriorating faster than we can patch them.

Even today, the challenge continues. Millcreek still lacks a dedicated Public Works crew for road maintenance and relies heavily on a county contract for services—an arrangement that hasn’t been enough to keep our roads in the shape residents deserve.

At the same time, fuel-efficient vehicles are shrinking gas tax revenue, even as road repair costs rise. Inflation, Utah’s freeze-thaw cycles, and aging asphalt are accelerating the damage. Many roads now need full reconstruction, but too often we can only afford temporary fixes—band-aids until long-term funding is secured.

The good news: Millcreek is not standing still. In the coming months, the city will host open houses to share the facts, hear from residents, and build real solutions. The road ahead may be bumpy—but together, we can pave the way forward. Join us for our first open house on Wednesday, March 4.