More and more people are going up into the mountains around Bountiful to hike or bike. The City has been working on a Trails Master Plan to develop trails to accommodate all recreators in the area. In a recent meeting, the City Council approved a project that would link Eggett Park with Holbrook Trailhead, providing connection, parking and amenities.

However, not everyone was in favor of the plan. “We only learned about the plan by accident,” one resident in the Eggett Park area told the council. “My neighbors hadn’t heard.”

Everybody’s in favor of trails, he said. ‘It’s not the same thing as saying every part of the trail plan is desirable for the citizens of Bountiful. It doesn’t follow when you get down to the nitty gritty of how it will affect an individual. When you look at the neighborhoods, that's when you begin to see the impact that can change your view about the overall plan.”

The concern is traffic and safety, he said. “We just ask that you press pause on this action to give it more thought since we were all surprised by it. Our voices haven’t really been heard on this. Look at the details for this particular neighborhood – that's all we ask.”

“Our main concern is parking,” said another resident. “There are 29 stalls at Eggett Park. I don’t know if you’ve been there in the summer but that parking lot is totally full. Where are all these people going to park?” 

He asked if the fire marshal was involved in this decision. “In order for a fire truck to operate you need about 12 feet. That road is about 32 feet. If you park cars on both sides of the street you’ll have about 16 feet left. So if we have people on the weekend and it’s full at the park and some additional people park on the side of the street we have a hazard there. What would happen if there was a fire?”

“The Bountiful Trails Master Plan goals and objectives include accommodating existing and future use of recreational areas,” said Todd Christensen, Assistant City Engineer. “The Holbrook Trailhead includes about 14 parking spaces if they’re packed in well. A lot of times the demand is higher than that. We expect that to increase in the Holbrook area.”

Eggett Park has 29 parking stalls and some other amenities that are nice for trail users, he said. “The proposed trail that would link these two together would better utilize parking and amenities at Eggett Park.”

This would act as an extension of Holbrook Trail, said Christensen. “We do have some trails in the Trails Master Plan up in the Holbrook area that do require forest service approval.”

Although Eggett Park is close to the Holbrook Trailhead, the terrain and other site constraints make this a technically challenging trail connection, he said. “It will require crucial rock retaining work to support the trail. We have a design for this that we put out for bid this summer but we didn’t get any bidders.”

Staff later reached out to a few contractors and received responses from Elite Landscape and AVID Trails. Christensen said staff selected Elite Landscape because of their experience and ability with rock work.

There are multiple funding sources for this project, he said. “We received a $20,000 donation from an anonymous donor specifically for this trail, a $20,000 Utah Outdoor Recreation Grant and a recent $10,000 donation received for trails that we can use for this project.”

“A colleague of mine in Kaysville had a similar situation two years ago,” said Bountiful Police Chief Ed Biehler. “They didn’t see an increase in crime. That puts a lot of eyes on it there by people who are using it responsibly who will report things that would not have been reported otherwise.”

A former city council member’s son is on a mountain biking team, said Councilmember Kate Bradshaw. “He was riding home at dusk. He was riding up to practice then coming down. You have some close encounters coming down 1800 South if you're competing with cars.”

A route like this going through slower, quieter neighborhood streets and utilizing one of our city parks helps youth to not have to rely on their parents to get up the hill, she said. “Something near and dear to my heart are those youth that are part of those teams.”

“We’re not asking for renaming Eggett Park,” said Parks Director Brock Hill. “It will still remain Eggett Park. We’re not going to advertise the trailhead, it’s simply build a trail that connects to Bountiful Blvd.”

After some discussion, the council approved the project. λ