Quote:
Originally Posted by cololi
From a functioning standpoint it makes no sense to have two. It adds about 3 minutes to both the airport line and the frontrunner line. Having two stations that close makes Frontrunner function more like a local transit system versus the regional function that it was intended to serve. Plus the impact on vehicular and pedestrain traffic on 400 West is negative. Add the davis county LRT and it creates a very tight meshing of three lines junctioning in a half block area. The frequency of the trains, the need for new traffic lights from a shortened viaduct and the turn radius for the airport lines results in complete failure for that intersection. the North Temple area becomes the most critical intersection to the entire system. The potential conflicts and delays and the engineering required are not worth even considering it as a location. For the Airport line to be a success, it has to have direct connection with Frontrunner and the easiest, most cost effective and least impactful place to do that is at Central Station. The other benefit of Central Station is that it has a much higher redevelopment potential due to the nature of existing land use and property ownership.
Central station isn't in a poor location. Given the logistics at the time, North Temple and the area around it had too many obstacles that would have taken too long and too much money to remedy. The current site has plenty of room to expand and it can handle all of the proposed lines travelling to it with some additional track and expansion. The bottleneck on the system is throughout downtown, where the system is the slowest. A downtown bypass is needed to handle the additional Jordan and W Valley lines, and the right of way is in place to do it along 400 or 500 West. The downtown trunk line will exceed it's capacity with all three new lines.
(and glad someone caught my spelling error in a previous post, it was intentionally placed)
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I can definitely agree with the stations being too close, so it acts like a local transit system. However, Frontrunner moves very slow through the rail yards of Salt Lake, and a station at the viaduct would not significantly slow the system down, when the train move so slowly anyway, and if it stays for less than a minute, which it does at the stations.
Trax already have to wait to get into the hub, more trains complicates even that. IMO they should reunited the University and Airport lines, and make them one long line. The train can start of stop at the Med center and go all the way to the airport. Bypassing the Intermodal hub for this new sub hub, thus relieving some stress.
I agree have a station at the viaduct would be expensive and cause other problems, but it solves some and creates a nice civic space. It would be much easier for people to get to the gateway and airport from the north.
The original plans for Trax and Frontrunner, where that the Union Station was to be the Hub. Thats why Trax used to stop infront of it. But the city stupidly sold it to boyer. I completely agree we need a bypass! And yes at the time, the current location was a good choice, but the city had better plans before they ruined them.
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