Salt Lake County, UT Sidewalk & Pedestrian Rules: Obstruction Rules (2026)

040 bans placing an "open ditch, flume, conduit, waterway, headgate, log, building material, vehicle, railway, or other obstruction" on any sidewalk, curb ramp or highway within the public right-of-way in the unincorporated county. The ordinance carves out a narrow exception: building materials, vehicles or objects may sit temporarily on the right-of-way if they don't impede, endanger or obstruct ordinary traffic, but they cannot stay there against instructions from the operations division of the county public works department. A companion clause bars driving or parking any vehicle, animal or object on a sidewalk, curb ramp or highway in a way likely to obstruct its ordinary use.

The chapter also addresses trash cans directly: garbage and solid waste containers collected by Salt Lake County Special District No. 1 or another licensed hauler may be set at the curb, but may not extend more than four feet into the street, cannot go out before the evening prior to collection day, and must come back off the street the same day they're emptied. The sanitation services division director and the county sheriff are named as the enforcement officers for the container rule. Penalties are tiered: a violation of the general obstruction ban (subsection A) or the vehicle/animal ban (subsection B) is a Class B misdemeanor, while violating the container placement and timing rule (subsection C) is only an infraction, the state's lowest criminal classification.

Because the chapter sits in Title 14 (Highways, Streets and Public Places), it governs only county roads and sidewalks outside the Salt Lake Valley's cities; each municipality (Salt Lake City, West Jordan, Sandy, and the rest) enforces its own obstruction code on its own streets.