This image has been floating around the Reddits and development threads over the weekend:
... so I can't help myself and I need to share a bit more of my Rio Grande plan!
A main criticism of moving Salt Lake Central Station to the Rio Grande depot is that it would cost too much for moving the station just 1 block. Well, that 1 block makes a HUGE difference.
The incorrect way to measure urban accessibility is to draw a circle with a radius of a 1/4 mile or a 1/2 to show how far away people would walk to and from the station:
Radii for Central Station:
Radii for Rio Grande Depot:
Not much difference, right?
But if we measure a 1/4 mile and a 1/2 mile down the actual routes people will walk, we get a very different result:
Central Station:
Rio Grande depot:
If you were to measure the lines, you would find that the Rio Grande depot's accessibility lines total 40,882 feet of street-fronts within a 1/2 mile, while the current Salt Lake Central station has only 20,663 feet of street-front within a 1/2 mile.
Basically, the Rio Grande depot is
TWICE as accessible for pedestrians than the current station, due to 2 important factors: 1) The Rio Grade depot blocks in the current central station on the east, making all of 300 South inaccessible, and 2) The surface railroad tracks and bridges block in the current central station on the west. For the Rio Grande depot, I have assumed a complete removal of the surface railroad tracks, which can be seen in the 'accessible' lines extending all the way to 700 West.
This major difference surprised me, and I'm more certain than ever that SLC must move its train station to the Rio Grande depot if the west side of downtown is to develop well. A Granary District streetcar will cost a lot of money but won't do nearly as much good as moving the train station.
I'd be curious to see what the development people on the main SLC thread think of this analysis.