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  #8261  
Old Posted Oct 30, 2019, 4:05 AM
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Hatman Hatman is offline
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Makid, you always make me so hopeful with talk of new funding coming in. But now combined with Utahn's observation that politicians/planners would prefer the west TRAX alignment (in the I-15 corridor), this suddenly makes me very nervous. You two are going to give me a heart attack!
How horrible would it be for new transit funding to come through just in time to enable planners/politicians to pick the more expensive but less effective west option? I would have to spend the next few years wandering the Wastch in silent hermitage to deal with my grief.

My bets are still on this study being an official way to let the state legislature down gently: "Yes, it is physically possible to run TRAX through your precious prison site, and yes, it would generate slightly more ridership, but it would cost this much more..."

And it is going to be a LOT more. Where is there space to run TRAX along the freeway without ripping out whole roads and businesses? That section of I-15 is already slated for huge expansions to ribbon-ramps (AKA collector-distributor roads) that are already going to bloat that stretch of road beyond its ROW. There just isn't enough room for TRAX unless you want to elevate the whole thing. Meanwhile the east option already has all the bridges sitting there, empty and ready for TRAX trains to roll over them....

So yeah, it seems like a pretty obvious choice to me, but now the both of you have got me worrying again. Thanks a lot.
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  #8262  
Old Posted Oct 30, 2019, 7:30 AM
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Encouraging article on BSL showing how ridership on the expanded routes (2, 9, and 21) have improved since August. The increases are dramatic and I don't think the beginning of the school semester can be seen as the only reason. Route 9 has especially benefited from it, with ridership increasing nearly 3x since then.

It also links to a survey about free fares and SLC transit passes.

https://www.buildingsaltlake.com/oth...ke-citys-turn/

Here's a direct link to the survey about free fare in Salt Lake City:
https://slcgov.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe...qftu-5su7CQJJw
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  #8263  
Old Posted Nov 7, 2019, 11:48 PM
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I talked with the UTA people at UDOT conference over the last 3 days. They were showing off their electric bus, which they got from New Flyer. It is a different brand than Park City went with (Proterra) because Park City told them that they were having 'electrical issues' with their buses, whatever that means.

Anyway, the buses work very similarly. UTA currently has 3 electric buses. They ordered 5 in partnership with the University of Utah, which will operate their 2 as campus shuttles.

There are also 20 more electric buses on order (), which were paid for with money UTA got from the Volkswagen settlement. I remember rumors that this money would be spent upgrading the diesel engines in FrontRunner locomotives, which I found dissapointing (I want a conversion to electric catenary, not improved diesels!). I think new electric buses are the best possible use of this money.

For now, the buses will be used on routes leaving Salt Lake Central Station, and they will only have the one overhead charger. The bus charges for about 10 minutes between trips, but based on the charts they showed me the bus can complete many round trips without needing to recharge. The 2 route, up to the U of U, is ideal for electric buses because of the hills; I was told that the bus basically recoups all its energy going downhill, and if it weren't for the heater and air conditioner (the #1 and #2 source of battery drain, respectively) the bus would be able to run that route all day without charging at all.

In addition to the 3 they already have running on the 2 Route, and the 20 they have on order, they are procuring a grant to get even more electric buses to use on the Park City Connect route between Salt Lake Central, the U of U, and Kimball Junction, where you can transfer to the Park City Electric Express. This means you could travel between these downtowns all on clean electricity!

I pumped the UTA representatives for information on how much cheaper these buses are expected to be in terms of maintenance, and so far UTA has no idea. It is weird that they haven't got a maintenance plan and budget ready yet, seeing as they are already running the buses! Hopefully they are smart enough to really evaluate how much work the buses need, so that they're not doing stupid stuff like replacing perfectly good brake pads just because their old diesel-bus spreadsheet tells them too.

As I left, they also mentioned they want to try out a hydrogen bus or two... they said it is important to have many sources of fuel so that if one type is unobtainable, UTA operations don't shut down. I tried to tell them about how electricity comes from many, many sources and that they don't need to invest money in an expensive hydrogen fueling plant, but important bureaucratic decisions are not made that way.

As always, two steps forward, potentially one step back.
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  #8264  
Old Posted Dec 6, 2019, 4:13 PM
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Kansas City beat us to the punch:

Kansas City Votes to Eliminate All Fees for Using Public Transit

https://www.insidehook.com/daily_bri...public-transit

Quote:
Earlier this week, the Kansas City Council voted unanimously to make the city the largest in the country to eliminate bus fares.

The vote allows Kansas City’s city manager to allocate up to $8 million from the city budget to fund the free bus service.

City Councilman Eric Bunch, who co-sponsored the measure with Mayor Quinton Lucas, said making buses free across the city was “the right thing to do.” [emphasis added]

“When we’re talking about improving people’s lives who are our most vulnerable citizens, I don’t think there’s any question that we need to find that money,” Bunch told KSHB. “That’s not a ton of money and it’s money that we as a city, if we want to prioritize public transportation, it’s something that we can find.”
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  #8265  
Old Posted Dec 12, 2019, 12:20 AM
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TRAX turned 20 years old this month. I do not have a map/schedule of the system from 1999, but I do have the schedule from my first ride, in December 2000, when I was just a kid:


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  #8266  
Old Posted Dec 13, 2019, 5:57 PM
Makid Makid is online now
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APTA's Q3 Ridership numbers are out:

https://www.apta.com/wp-content/uplo...rship-APTA.pdf

Highlights:

Bus: 72.1K average daily riders. This is an increase of 5.10% over Q3 2018.
Trax: 56.0K average daily riders. This is a decrease of 6.35% from Q3 2018.
FrontRunner: 19.3K average daily riders. This shows no change from Q3 2018.
Total Ridership: 154.5K average daily riders. This is a decrease of 0.90% from Q3, 2018.

It is nice to see bus ridership continue to increase. UVX has been active for a full year and SLC saw its first transit adjustments take place in August. The changes to bus service in SLC should continue to see increased ridership especially once additional routes are updated.

FrontRunner appears to be nearing its cap with the current trainsets and track structure.

Trax is continuing to see a decrease in ridership. The last time a quarter had an increase over the previous year was Q2 of 2017. SLC is closer to fully funding the 6th South Trax station which will both increase ridership and help to speed up development in the area (Patrinely/Lowes).

Forecasting:

With the update to taxes passed last night by the State Legislature, we may start to see transit usage increase. The primary driver for this is the approximate $0.10 per gallon gas tax increase. This increase will push many drivers to evaluate their driving habits. It may not move many to switch over or back to transit but there will be some. The tax changes will not be implemented for 60 days.

UTA is working on updating routes in SL County with an increased focus on Ridership over Coverage. The changes are currently planned to take effect in August 2020.

Ridership for bus and Trax should see increases over the next year with these 2 items.

Now, things can change quickly if/when fares are removed from transit. The only question will be who will be first, SLC, SL County, or the State.

Lastly, the State is still looking for a way to speed up the Blue line extension to Northern Utah County. Will this be the year that the State provides direct funding for the extension?
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  #8267  
Old Posted Dec 27, 2019, 7:03 AM
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So I spent my holidays so far using CAD software from my place of employment laying out a massive hypothetical redesign of Salt Lake City's west side.

The premise is this: What if Salt Lake City completely redesigned their west side for transit and redevelopment in the same way that Denver did in the last decade?

As a quick reminder, this is what Denver's rail yards looked like in 2011, just as their redevelopment efforts got started:


You can see Union Station at the bottom right and nothing but empty space to the north. A light rail ilne runs through the nothingness to the back of the depot.

Now it looks like this:



The emptiness has been replaced with high-rises, and the former historic depot is now the centerpiece of a grand central station. Significantly, the light rail line was moved to make way for all this development, with approximately 1,500 feet of LRT being abandoned. Also a massive 900-foot long underground bus depot was built between the two rail stations. It was massively expensive, but the new developments are ready to offset that cost.

There are plenty of things to not like about the redesign too - I hate how the station is now a stub-end design and I dislike the long walk between the two rail modes, but compared with our dismal 'Salt Lake Central Station', I would pick Denver's any day.

What would happen if Salt Lake City got equally ambitious?
  • Revitalize a historic rail depot
  • Build a massive underground transit station
  • Do it even if it requires abandoning 1,500 feet of light rail track
  • Open up enough space for redevelopment to offset the massive costs

Here is my proposal:
  1. Move Salt Lake Central Station to the Rio Grande Depot and abandon the current station infrastructure
  2. Run Frontrunner, Amtrak, and the future east-west commuter rail lines down a trench below 500 West
  3. Move the Union Pacific tracks west to the freeway and open up the land between 600 West and the freeway to redevelopment.

All together, Salt Lake City would look something like this:


That image is from a Google Map I created to illustrate the potential. Light green areas show new develop-able land. 700 West street is restored to where it was before the rail yards will built 100+ years ago, and a 'green belt' of pedestrian pathways is built beside the relocated freight railroad tracks that connect downtown to the Jordan River Parkway.

Here is the link to the google map: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Ks...eA&usp=sharing

Let's go through the CAD drawings, starting at the south end:



Here we see that the Union Pacific tracks have been shifted to the west (bottom of the picture) in order to make room for the additional passenger tracks. Beginning at the 13th South viaduct these five tracks will start to drop below ground level at a 2% grade. From there they will curve eastward on the old Rio Grande passenger ROW under I-15:



It is hard to see, but I have also redesigned the 900 South freeway ramp to direct to 500 West. This design is entirely up to UDOT standards and shows exactly how much impact such a realignment would cause.
I've also realigned the access roads under the viaduct in order to maintain access to existing properties, hence the extra road on the north side of the trench.
By the time the tracks go under the first road, they should be down to 28' below grade level in preparation of going under 500 West. the cross-section will look like this:



This view is looking north. Amtrak is the track on the far left (west), FrontRunner are the two tracks in the middle, and the two tracks on the right (east) are the east-west commuter rail line that will connect Park City to Salt Lake City and Tooele Valley.
Again, this is not a guesstimate - these measurements and standards are taken directly from standard design guides and are based heavily on the railroad trench recently constructed in Reno, Nevada.

Above the trench will be 6' deep beams, upon which a 1' deep bridge deck will be laid for cars to drive on. The new 500 West will have two lanes in each direction and will have a grassy median in the middle, where ventilation shafts can be opened between the bridge beams.

Here is a view with both the rail trench and the road design laid on top of one another, showing how the ventilation shafts will look from above:



At the Rio Grande depot the tracks will spread out so that three below-grade platforms can be built between the tracks (the Amtrak track will split into two station tracks immediately before and after the island platform:



I have put a large plaza just west of the Rio Grande depot that connects to elevators and escalators to all three platforms. There are also escalators and elevators on the far north and south ends of each platform as well, making four access points to each platform.

To the west of the plaza is a bus loading zone 16' wide. There is then a 10' wide bus lane for boarding/alighting, and a 12' bus-only lane, then a curb and gutter. This means that 500 West effectively ends at 400 South, and all non-bus traffic must turn left or right. Buses arriving on I-15 can travel directly up 500 West and terminate their routes at the new Salt Lake Central Station.
Here is a kindergarten-level drawing of what it will look like, complete with a cut away in the lower right!


Another bad drawing of how the depot fits into the larger layout of the new Salt Lake Central Station:



To the east of the depot, on Rio Grande street, I have placed the TRAX line on the west edge of the street. By braiding the tracks (having them cross over each other) both the northbound and southbound stations can be built as side stations, meaning that nobody needs to cross any roads to access the TRAX platforms. People will need to go through the main hall of the depot, and all the parking on the east side of the depot will need to be replaced with pedestrian plazas, all of which will be built to handle the larger crowds anticipated for both FrontRunner in the future and the new commuter rail ilne to Park City and Tooele.



North of the depot the tracks will return to their 5-track formation and will all begin to climb up to ground level - except for the two commuter rail tracks on the east, which at this point are headed west to Tooele. These two tracks will remain below grade in order to pass beneath the other three tracks. As they curve west they will also pass beneath the Union Pacific mainline and the Salt Lake Garfield & Western Railroad tracks.

Another view, this time with North to the top:



This shows the new commuter line tracks fitting in exactly where the Union Pacific tracks now are, while the UP tracks will be shifted south to make room.


______________

So, is this plan plausible?

Yes, I have showed that geometrically such a layout can fit downtown.

But what is the point moving Salt Lake Central Station only one block further east?

Quality and Quantity, The Rio Grande depot is a much better station building than anything that can be constructed on the current Salt Lake Central site. It is larger and has accommodated large crowds in the past. It was built to be a grand entryway for Salt Lake City, and it would be wonderful to use it that way again:



As for quantity, the current Salt Lake Central station is not large enough to handle the projected ridership of an increased FrontRunner service. Having people cross the FrontRunner or TRAX tracks at-grade is not acceptable or safe for larger crowds, and the platforms are so narrow that crowding and jams will become common. Creating wider platforms and grade-separating the pedestrian walkways with escalators and elevators between TRAX and FrontRunner platforms will cost millions of dollars and will create many service disruptions.

Speaking of crossings, there is also the safety argument. By running the passenger tracks below grade, there will no longer be any conflicts between pedestrians/vehicles and passenger trains. With FrontRunner going to 15-minute schedules in the future, that would mean a train passing through downtown at least every 7.5 minutes, and more if trains ran more frequently during peak hours. There have already been a few pedestrian fatalities downtown, including this one in 2018:

https://www.deseret.com/2018/7/20/20...ing-group-ride

By placing the tracks below grade, the crossings at 900 South, 800 South, 200 South, and 600 West would be eliminated for passenger trains, leaving only a few freight trains a day.

How much will all this cost?

The trench in Reno, Nevada, is a comparison. This project through their downtown cost $200 million for a trench about as long and a depot restoration even more intense than what is proposed here. Considering, though, that my trench is wider and has a road on top, I would place the costs at about $400-$500 million.

How can this be paid for?

A variety of sources. First, by opening the rail yards for development, Salt Lake City would make about 85 acres of new land available as taxable downtown real-estate.
UDOT would also be vital in covering the cost. Railroad crossing safety is UDOT's responsibility, and 4 crossings are effectively being closed with this project. Usually grade separations cost many tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars, so a very large chunk could be paid off as 'safety improvements.'
There are also considerations of what money would need to be spent if this plan is not enacted. Some sort of depot building will eventually need to be built at Salt Lake Central Station, which will cost on its own several 10's of millions of dollars, and will probably be a sore-spot between UTA and the public for many many years. Other major pieces of infrastructure, such as the I-15 bridge over the UTA tracks and 900 South, cannot handle any more tracks and would need to be completely rebuilt to handle a second FrontRunner track. By running the UTA tracks through the trench, this I-15 bridge will not need to be rebuilt, saving several hundreds of millions of dollars on its own.



I think this proposal has the potential to actually be built, and it would transform Salt Lake City's west side and reinvigorate our transit system.
What are your thoughts?

Last edited by Hatman; Dec 27, 2019 at 7:19 AM.
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  #8268  
Old Posted Dec 27, 2019, 3:48 PM
Makid Makid is online now
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Hatman,

I love the idea and plan.

For an additional funding source, maybe include UP. They may be willing to partner on the project. Having their N/S line below grade down through the area would help them as well. This will stop the trains blocking E/W traffic at 2nd, 8th, and 9th Souths.

With Amtrak already using the UP tracks, I could see them continuing this share into the future.

With this being a City and State project, UP could possibly bring in maybe 10% to 15% of the cost. While it would be late now, it would be nice to think that the nearly $50 Million that UP is providing UDoT for their share of the bridge on 5600 W over their tracks could have been used to help with this realignment.

I would go a step further on the station and have the West side fully covered in a glass shell (similar to the main Berlin station) at least over the train bays. In this way, the station would be even better and UTA/SLC could include retail/restaurant options to provide additional revenue sources.

Lastly, this would require a good rezone for the area, maybe a D-1.5 with 50' minimums and 375' maximums for heights. With the number of people projected to pass through the station at nearly 185,000 daily riders**, this would drive up demand for higher density and heights.

**
Full Double Track and Electrified FrontRunner = 93,000 estimated daily riders (UTA/UDoT)
E/W FrontRunner = 35,000 personal estimated daily riders
Trax+Bus alignments = 55,000 personal estimated daily riders
Amtrak filling in the rest
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  #8269  
Old Posted Dec 28, 2019, 4:08 AM
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  #8270  
Old Posted Dec 29, 2019, 2:01 AM
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Wasatch Wasteland Wasatch Wasteland is offline
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Hatman,

If you don’t mind me asking, where is your place of employment? Or, at the very least, what field? I was wondering if you would be willing to share the CAD file of your work on this, I’d love to render a concept master plan for the area and it would be much easier if the bones and line-work are already built.

It’s just a personal project to build up my portfolio, I’m currently working on something similarly related. I’d love to credit the initial work to someone with a real name! If anyone else is willing to share their own concepts or sketches please message me, it would be fantastic to compile the ideas of many great minds.
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  #8271  
Old Posted Dec 31, 2019, 12:43 AM
downtownslcresident downtownslcresident is offline
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How feasible is it that something like this could be proposed to the city council and RDA? What would it take to turn this amazing concept from pipe dream to reality?
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  #8272  
Old Posted Dec 31, 2019, 7:40 AM
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Anything can be proposed to the city council and RDA, and also UDOT and Union Pacific Railroad and UTA, but there is no chance anyone will move on the idea until it has been kicked around for a while. We're going to need to build up a coalition of interested urbanists who want to see Downtown Salt Lake City prosper. Some of us are going to need to spend a lot of time and energy really fleshing out these ideas with the real world concerns.

Speaking of which, Wastch_Wasteland, I didn't mean to ignore you. I'm a licensed civil engineer and work for a company that regularly does consulting work for UDOT and UTA (yes, I let my hobbies and my job mix, I know I know...). Send me a DM with an email address or file sharing location where I can reach you, and I'll send you my CAD file. It is still a work in progress, so don't get too excited yet - but I would be honored and flattered if you do decide to use it for a project in your portfolio.

Makid, you make an excellent point with your ridership projections. If we assume that half of the ridership of each mode comes to Salt Lake City via the Rio Grande station, that would still mean about 100,000 people could be using the station per day, which would place it firmly within the top-ten busiest rail stations in North America
That felt absurd to type, but remember that FrontRunner is already the 10th busiest commuter rail System in the United States. If you measure by individual commuter rail lines FrontRunner is close to the top 5 (depending on how you count - weekday vs yearly average etc). It really will get to the point very soon where the infrastructure that is constraining its ridership is not how many trains can run per hour (an issue that will disappear once double-tracking happens), but instead will be constrained by the stations themselves.

For urbanists, moving the city's main transit center a block closer to downtown is a huge deal, especially with Salt Lake City's huge blocks. Here's a size comparison that blew my mind:



That red line that goes from South Temple down Main Street to 4th South and not quite as far west as 300 West?

That is the size of Chicago's L Loop. It really shows how insanely big downtown Salt Lake City is geographically. Anything that can be done to make our urban core more human-sized is worthy of our consideration, since Salt Lake was not designed for density.

Last edited by Hatman; Dec 31, 2019 at 5:20 PM.
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  #8273  
Old Posted Dec 31, 2019, 4:18 PM
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Great work on the design, Hatman! It's very exciting to think about such a project and I agree that it would be a gamechanger for downtown SLC. It's really a shame how underutilized the Rio Grande station is currently.
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  #8274  
Old Posted Dec 31, 2019, 5:31 PM
Utahn Utahn is offline
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I love the design, and I would love to see the Rio Grande utilized as a Central Station for Salt Lake. I think folks would have to move fast to build some support though. Based on this Building Salt Lake article support from the Farmer's Market and the Downtown Alliance are centering in the Rio Grande as the permanent home for a public market (contingent on the Utah Department of Heritage and Arts getting funding for a new home this next legislative session).

https://www.buildingsaltlake.com/is-...alt-lake-city/

Perhaps it would be possible for a Central Station and the Public Market to coexist though?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Atlas View Post
Great work on the design, Hatman! It's very exciting to think about such a project and I agree that it would be a gamechanger for downtown SLC. It's really a shame how underutilized the Rio Grande station is currently.
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  #8275  
Old Posted Jan 4, 2020, 12:22 AM
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Great ideas Hatman, I LOVE IT!

Also, think about how the current track to the current central station might be reused to serve the neighborhoods west of the freeway (poplar grove, etc.), and how they might cross your proposed relocated union pacific railroad.

Last edited by Old&New; Jan 4, 2020 at 4:08 AM.
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  #8276  
Old Posted Jan 7, 2020, 11:15 PM
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With line down 200 south (serving convention center hotel):

Last edited by Old&New; Jan 8, 2020 at 12:08 AM.
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  #8277  
Old Posted Jan 9, 2020, 12:45 AM
SLCPolitico SLCPolitico is offline
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I'm currently perusing the Governor's proposed FY2021 budget and found that he has proposed appropriating $34 million in ongoing revenue to begin the process of double tracking Frontrunner! We'll have to see how the Legislature responds but Herbert is proposing that UTA put together a strategic plan for double-tracking the entire system by July of next year.
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  #8278  
Old Posted Jan 9, 2020, 4:04 AM
Makid Makid is online now
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SLCPolitico View Post
I'm currently perusing the Governor's proposed FY2021 budget and found that he has proposed appropriating $34 million in ongoing revenue to begin the process of double tracking Frontrunner! We'll have to see how the Legislature responds but Herbert is proposing that UTA put together a strategic plan for double-tracking the entire system by July of next year.
More information:

https://www.ksl.com/article/46702054...udget-proposal

Quote:
FrontRunner double-tracking

In all, Herbert wants $1.8 billion to go toward Utah's transportation systems. However, a $34 million request for ongoing funds to help Utah Transit Authority work on double-tracking its FrontRunner lines might be the most notable transportation ask.

Double-tracking, or two rail lines, allows trains to move up and down the line without having to stop to allow a train in the other direction to pass by. The governor’s office says some “strategically placed” tracking might allow for increased-capacity express trains that could depart every 15 minutes instead of every 30 minutes. That, in turn, could help increase efficiency and make the system more convenient for commuters.
There is also some additional money that is set aside as part of the air quality section:

Quote:
Herbert is once again seeking $100 million toward air quality improvements, which include transit and electric vehicle infrastructure. The request is specifically $66 million in one-time and $34 million in ongoing funds.
It is possible that some of these funds could be used to enhance the FrontRunner Double Track or be set aside for use on the Trax Blue Line extension to Utah County.

Because it is infrastructure rather than service, it cannot be used for bus routes but would be able to be used for BRT, Trax, Streetcar, and FrontRunner enhancements.

I do think that we will probably see around $100 Million being spent on FrontRunner double tracking this session. As they could use 1 time money, it wouldn't impact the overall budget and it would show good faith in improving transit.

While I was hoping to see additional call outs for free transit, I think that the State is using 2020 as the guinea pig so to speak to test how well the few free transit days do this year.

I do also expect that we may see something from Salt Lake City with regards to free or severely reduced transit for City residents or within the City boundaries.

I can't wait to see what bills come up this year for Transit.

One final note, there is still ongoing discussions about fully merging UTA into UDoT. This would fully allow UDoT more latitude in spending money to improve transit along the Wasatch Front.
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  #8279  
Old Posted Jan 9, 2020, 8:14 AM
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I absolutely do not want UTA as part of UDOT. UTA should be its own agency, not be run by people who think the car is the answer to everything. Consider me skeptical that it would lead to better transit as opposed to transit just being marginalized.

I am encouraged by the transportation and air quality requests in the budget though. A fully double-tracked FrontRunner would be an absolute game-changer.
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  #8280  
Old Posted Jan 9, 2020, 7:02 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Old&New View Post


With line down 200 south (serving convention center hotel):
Now this is just crazy talk.

They actually remind me of this:
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