Toquerville • On any given day in Toquerville, thousands of cars weave through the small gateway community on their way to Zion National Park. Now, a new route will bypass the historic downtown, providing relief for locals and quicker travel for tourists.
Community members and local leaders gathered at the north end of the new Toquerville Parkway for a ribbon cutting ceremony on Thursday morning. Classic old cars cruised down the freshly paved road and winners of the Miss Toquerville contest handed out watermelon slices in celebration.
“We all can’t wait to get the traffic out of town,” said Toquerville Mayor Justin Sip.
(Bailey Guthrie| Toquerville City) Winners of the Miss Toquerville contest hand out melons and water bottles at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Toquerville Parkway on Thursday, July 10, 2025.
Roughly five million people visit Zion National Park annually, and the most direct route for tourists traveling from the north is on State Route 17, which currently runs past old pioneer homes in the center of the town of roughly 2,000 residents.
Soon, SR-17 will re-route onto the new Toquerville Parkway that runs parallel to Toquerville Boulevard but skirts around the edge of historic downtown.
“We don’t want to lose any old pioneer homes and keep the quiet way of life in Toquerville,” said Sip.
Even though the ribbon cutting ceremony took place on Thursday, visitors and residents will experience a gradual opening over the next few months as construction crews complete the tie-ins that connect the new road to existing infrastructure at each end. Sip estimates construction will finish by mid-September.
Once done, drivers entering Toquerville off of I-15 will naturally flow onto the Toquerville Parkway and those going downtown will have to take a hard left.
“You’ll have to consciously get to downtown Toquerville,” Sip said. “You’re not going to accidentally get there.”
Sip estimates the new road will cut drive times by four to eight minutes for tourists traveling to Zion.
Residents who currently live along Toquerville Boulevard struggle to maneuver through traffic while backing out of their driveway, Sip said. Cars cruise by at 40 miles per hour, a speed limit set by the state to keep tourist traffic flowing more quickly.
“In rural Utah, our biggest challenge is every state route is a main street,” said Kirk Thornock, a UDOT regional director who oversees southern Utah. “We have to have that delicate balance of providing a main street that the communities desire, plus getting traffic through.”
Once construction is complete and UDOT and Toquerville finalize an agreement, the new parkway will transfer to the state’s jurisdiction and Toquerville Boulevard will go to the city. Sip said the city will then lower the speed limit on the boulevard to 25 miles per hour.
(Mark Eddington | The Salt Lake Tribune) The historic John C. Naegle Big House in Toquerville, Utah. During the height of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' wine mission in the 1800s, Naegle produced 3,000 gallons of Nail’s Best, which was regarded as the finest wine in southern Utah. The upper floors of the structure were used as a polygamous residence while the basement had a wine cellar and distillery.
“It’s going to be huge to be able to preserve the old downtown part of Toquerville,” said Rep. Joseph Elison, R-Toquerville.
Elison first moved to the small gateway community near Zion National Park in 1985. Then, the town had roughly 450 residents and a lot less traffic, he told The Tribune.
He remembers one woman in her 80s who was near blind but still insisted on crossing the boulevard and walking to church every Sunday. “I don’t know that she could do that nowadays with the amount of cars,” he said.
In the next two decades, Elison estimates the town’s population will jump to 15,000 to 20,000.
That growth has not only created traffic issues but also a housing shortage. “In the past, we had to kind of export our children for work,” Elison told The Tribune. “But the problem with a lot of the growth is the price of housing goes up, and now we kind of have to export our kids for housing.”
The new road will open up opportunities for residential and commercial development. Currently Toquerville doesn’t have a grocery store or gas station, the nearest being in La Verkin roughly three miles south. The land surrounding the parkway is largely undeveloped fields of sagebrush and red dirt, but new houses are already being built in the area and grocery stores and hotels will come too, Sip said.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Toquerville, with the Hurricane Cliffs in the distance, on Thursday, May 12, 2022.
City Councilmember Chuck Williams said he also hopes to see more services for the local community, such as schools and a hospital.
Elison believes growth and historic preservation can co-exist in Toquerville and other rapidly growing parts of Washington County.
“I think the cities and counties have done a pretty good job of striking that balance and hopefully the citizens can appreciate how much hard work goes into a project like this,” he said