Browse
Log in / Register
Share
LEHI, Utah — Feb. 20, 2025 — Three weeks after a 15-year-old Skyridge High School student was struck by a truck while crossing State Route 92 at Center Street, Lehi residents are renewing their push for a pedestrian bridge over the busy highway. The teenager, whose name has not been released, was treated for a fractured wrist. To neighbors and city leaders, the crash was a long-anticipated warning about an intersection they say has been dangerous for years — and could be fatal next time.
The collision happened at the crosswalk on SR-92 at Center Street, where a large truck making a right turn hit the student as he crossed on an e-bike. Witnesses say the driver did not see him begin to cross. The boy was left with a fractured wrist.
Tiffany Barker, a Lehi resident who lives near the intersection, was the third person to reach him. "He was doing everything right — e-bike, crosswalk, waiting for his chance to cross," Barker said. "The truck turned right and simply didn't see him. He was on the ground in pain, so we kept him still until paramedics arrived."
Barker says the accident was not the shock it should have been. Residents had watched students funnel through the same crosswalk for years and had repeatedly asked when the intersection would be made safer. "We've seen this coming for a long time," she said.
The corner of SR-92 and Center Street is a critical crossing for both Skyridge High School and nearby Viewpoint Middle School. Ninth graders from Viewpoint travel to Skyridge during the school day for specialized classes, so the crosswalk sees heavy foot traffic at mid-morning, lunch, and early afternoon — not just at the opening and closing bells.
Around those school trips, the intersection also serves nearby businesses, the walking paths that converge on the corner, and commuters on a major east-west route through northern Utah County. Lehi has been one of Utah's fastest-growing cities for more than a decade, and the school district has redrawn attendance boundaries in the area to keep pace — changes that have put more students on foot along the state highway.
Parents describe the late-morning class-change window and the afternoon release as the most tense periods, when groups of students cross together and drivers are anxious to make the light. "There's a lot of foot traffic," Barker said. "Students coming and going, people going to the shops, walking paths on both sides. It's constant movement."
The danger goes beyond traffic volume. For a large truck, a right turn at a busy intersection creates a blind zone along the right side of the cab that can hide a person on a bike or standing at the curb. Traffic-safety researchers know the pattern as the "right hook" — a vehicle turning right strikes a pedestrian or bicyclist going straight through the crosswalk — and it remains one of the most common crash types for bicyclists at signalized intersections.
The e-bike factor adds another layer. E-bikes are a familiar sight around Lehi's schools, and they move considerably faster than a walker. A driver scanning for slower road users can easily underestimate how quickly an e-bike will close the distance to the turn. In this case, witnesses say the driver never saw the student at all.
Utah's own safety campaigns — including UDOT's Zero Fatalities program — stress eye contact between drivers and people at crosswalks. That step is impossible when a turning truck driver's view is blocked by the truck's own blind zone.
Lehi City Council member Rachel Freeman, who drives the intersection daily, says the design has always felt wrong. "I've been worried about it for a long time," Freeman said. "I go into that intersection daily, if not multiple times a day, and there are blind spots. I don't want any family in our community to deal with a tragedy. A pedestrian bridge would help."
The push for a bridge did not start with the crash. Lehi City engineers flagged the intersection years ago, anticipating that growth would keep making it busier. The city has since worked on a design and secured roughly half of the money needed to build it.
Freeman confirmed the city's position: "We've been working on a design and securing funds, and we have about half of the funding so far. We're still waiting, hopefully, for the other half to come from UDOT."
What remains is the question of when the rest will arrive. Boyde Humpherys, deputy director of UDOT's Region Three, put the project's cost at $8 million to $9 million — a figure that covers design, right-of-way, utility relocations, and construction. For a city of Lehi's size, that is too large to fund alone.
UDOT acknowledges the concern and says the project is moving up its list. The bridge across SR-92 currently ranks among the top three on the agency's regional priority list. That ranking reflects crash history, traffic volumes, and recommendations from local committees, with projects scored on urgency and readiness.
Spokesman John Gleason said recent school-boundary changes in the area have raised the stakes. "We're making it a priority to find solutions for this crossing," Gleason said. "We don't want to see a situation like this happen again."
Still, the department will not commit to a schedule. Humpherys said UDOT is "working as fast as we can through the process for everyone," but no timeline has been set for design work or construction.
For now, the project sits in a familiar limbo: designed, half-funded, and ranked high on a priority list that is not the same as a construction schedule. Lehi officials say the design work means the bridge could move quickly once the remaining money is committed. Residents say that is exactly why the timing matters — every month the project waits is another month of children crossing on the ground.
The crash also comes amid a broader push in Utah to protect people who share the road with vehicles. State law extends extra protections to "vulnerable road users" — a category that includes pedestrians, bicyclists, and people using wheelchairs or other mobility devices. Drivers who commit a traffic violation and injure a vulnerable road user can face criminal penalties beyond a standard citation.
The legal consequences, though, come after an injury. Residents say the point of the bridge is to remove the risk itself.
Council member Michelle Stallings says there is a way to close the funding gap without a single agency bearing the full cost. A pedestrian bridge farther west was built through a partnership among Lehi City, UDOT, and the Utah Transit Authority, with federal grants covering a substantial share.
"It could be a partnership again," Stallings said. "The funding for the west-side bridge was structured differently, but the model is proven."
No new funding commitment has been announced, but city and UDOT officials say discussions are continuing.
While officials sort out funding, residents have kept the issue visible. Several petitions have circulated through Lehi neighborhoods and local businesses since the crash, aimed at keeping the bridge at the top of the agenda at both the city and state levels.
Barker, who watches students cross near her own street every school day, says the community has measured the cost of waiting — and it is too high.
"We really need this bridge now," she said. "We can't wait for another kid to get injured before it becomes a priority."
