Salt Lake Transit News Thread

[cololi]

Originally Posted by John Martin

Can someone teach me what insight there is for street cars to be considered superior to buses? I just don't get the idea, just seems like another bus system confined to some strips of metal and a juicier price tag. Is it just the fact that street cars or trolleys (which one?) seem so cool to ride on or is there actually some reasoning behind the whole idea?

Streetcars have become a development tool. Think of it has development oriented transit instead of transit oriented development. Bus lines do not generate the amount of private investments in an area as street cars do because they are not permanent meaning they can be easily relocated. The idea is if you can generate $10 of investment for every $1 dollar spent, the local economy grows.

[Orlando]

Originally Posted by i-215

Well, it's all gonna fill up with cheap Ivory Homes anyway. May as well plan for the growth.

(And ask anyone here, I do want to move to L.A.)

Go ahead! Better to ruin one place than two! Ok, I'm being a bit harsh here. Sorry. But, never give in to the same 'ol mentality that status quo will never change. Planning and cities change over time, and hopefully more metropolitans will place control measures in place.

The problem with this Ivory homes mentality above, is that it continually encourages new growth on the perimeter and leaves the core, and the older areas to deteriorate, and we get blight, and we have dead downtowns, or downtowns that are continually struggling to fight with the ever expanding suburbs. It is simply unsustainable. Also, if you care enough about the terrorist conflicts, wars, etc. or environmental garbage (ie. smog) or energy crises that we are having and will increase to extremes!, than you would want to find a way out of your ignorant ways and find a better way of developing and planning!

Oh, by the way, here's something I know you will probably drool over. I lived in the ATL for awhile. I do admit how fun it is to cruise through the city on a fast-moving wide-open freeway.



Ne

[John Martin]

Originally Posted by urbanboy

There is an intangible appeal particular to electric railways, a cachet that some have termed the “sparks effect.” Modern streetcars offer a smooth, stable ride that is distinctively different from that of a bus. Light rail attracts passengers who would otherwise not use public transit.

Ah, I never thought about smoothness. I guess that would add to the appeal even more.

[John Martin]

I just stumbled upon these renderings of the new Salt Lake International Airport, which I've been searching for endlessly. Looks pretty solid, maybe it'll actually get built some day (haha).



















Renderings from Richard Friedson.

[wrendog]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but those are like 10 years old and it has been scaled back. Someone posted a PDF somewhere in this thread that shows a more recent terminal layout.

[wrendog]

Wait.. maybe I'm wrong.. Maybe that is the latest.. I don't think so though.

[John Martin]

They're dated March 30, 1998, so yeah, they're old. I had a couple people tell me they haven't seen any renderings so I assumed no one had posted them.

[skyguy414]

Those renderings were posted a while back and reflect a previous design. The airport has redone its master plan so many times it is hard to keep track. But as far as I know, there are no recent renderings of what the new terminal will look like but the most recent master plan can be found here: http://www.slcairport.com/pdf/planning/SLC_ALP_Report.pdf It only shows a layout of the terminal, no renderings like posted above. While the layout is very similar as what is depicted above, there is no way in knowing exactly what it will look like and my guess is there will be at least one more revision of the master plan before construction begins. So who knows.

We all know a new terminal will happen but the question is when. The airport has been saying for years a new terminal would be built only for them to put it off for a few more years. The city hired a new airport director a couple years ago who was actually serious about putting things in motion but Rocky Anderson decided to fire him because he wanted to expand the airport and Rocky objected.

The airport currently handles about twice the number of passengers it was built for, so they will have to do it sometime. But it seems they are just seeing how long they can get away with the current terminals.

[skyguy414]

Well, checking the airport site again, they seem to have uploaded a new layout for the future of the airport. It is dated January 5, 2009.

See it here: http://www.slcairport.com/pdf/planning/ALP/AP1_ALP.html

There aren't a whole lot of changes from previous designs, but if you look at it, you can see some minor differences to the terminal layout, as well as I presume the final path the new light rail line will take which appears to go up to the front door of the new terminal. Also note the re-alignment of the east runway to more precisely paraellel the other runways, the extension of the center runway, as well as a possible new runway to the west where the International Center business complex is now.

So, at least they are still updating the master plan and making modifcations to it as needed. It at least lets us know they are still serious about a new terminal.

[John Martin]

It is good to know they're not just talking about it. Is it just me or does the January 5th version look more like the old one than the one you posted just before?

[skyguy414]

Originally Posted by John Martin

It is good to know they're not just talking about it. Is it just me or does the January 5th version look more like the old one than the one you posted just before?

Yes, there are similarities. But it looks like they changed the way they are going to implement regional aircraft parking. Instead of a permanent regional concourse, it looks like they will make the concourse easier to adjust to demand and capable of handling regional jets or larger aircraft. Which is very smart, because the demand and use of regional aircraft fluctuates a lot over a period of years.

[Urban_logic]

Well, in 215's deffense, I do think that SLC will need to invest in more freeways. We love to say, "Everyone will ditch their cars and switch to mass transit in droves once complete." The sad fact of the matter is that there will always be demand for freeways no matter how great an urban area develops its mass transit. Look at the Bay Area. It has, arguably, one of the most extensive and efficient mass-transportation systems in the country. Light rail, elevated rail, underground rail, buses, street cars, trollies, etc. But even the Bay has bad traffic issues despite having such a great mass-transit infrastructure. There are so many freeways, it's hard to keep count. There's all the I-80 branches (I-80, I-280, I-380, I-580, I-680, I-780, I-880, and I-980 - the 480 was destroyed during the 89' Quake and was never rebuilt), then there's the state freeways (the 4, 13, 24, 101, etc - trust me, there are more, I just can't remember all of them).


Golden Gate Bridge traffic moving south-bound into the city. Notice the reversible lane in the middle allowing for an extra lane for peak traffic and taking away a lane for non-peak traffic flows:





Bay Bridge traffic moving west-bound into the city. This bridge has 5 lanes of traffic on the top deck, 5 lanes on the bottom:





North-bound traffic makes its way slowly into down town on the I-280:





Traffic moves at a modest pace between Berkeley and Oakland along I-80:





The toll plaza on the Bay Bridge is awful to commute through! The freeway swells outward to 16 in-bound lanes (5 out-bound) to make paying the toll faster (motorists are only tolled in-bound). Then, the 16 in-bound lanes converge to just 5 lanes to fit onto the bridge. You'll spend half your commute just on this bridge alone if you're coming from the East Bay:







BART cuts commute times by 50-75% for long-distance commuters:











I wish that we could do away with cars altogether and all ride mass-transit, but it won't happen. The best thing we can do is provide that option and then accomidate audomabiles. The best thing we can do is invest in all of our trasportation systems to ensure region-wide connectivity and mobility. Those who hate traffic jams can ride trains. Those who love their cars can fight their way down the freeway. I do hope that fuel-efficient and emmission-free vehicles make their way toward affordability for the masses so that we can at least have clean air, but I don't see the feasability to completely elliminate freeways from our transit models for at least a century.

[cololi]

The biggest thing that can be done is in regards to land use. transportation is important and the two are like the chicken and the egg, but at least along the WF local govts. are not too interested in making sound land use decisions. Until that changes, nothing changes.

[urbanboy]

Our freeway's are sufficient, We don't need anymore! New roads and freeways make land that once wasn't accessible, accessible and therefore developable. Unless there are regulations and no build zones set in place around the freeway (like they have in germany) the newly accessible areas are developed and the ever outward inefficient trend continues. Many people then move from the city to the suburb because they can get more house for their buck (even though many don't actually need that much space (it's usually more of an insecure class thing)) and commute to their jobs in the city. As time goes on, because of new development on the outskirts and more and more people commuting into the city, and because an automobile based transportation system is just plain inefficient, the freeways become clogged. Many businesses then follow their employees and relocate their business in the suburbs because again, land is cheaper and they don't want to lose their workforce. Then people living in the suburbs want to be entertained without having to travel to the city. The suburbs then compete for Stadiums and Broadway style theaters. As this trend continues, everything becomes decentralized and the inner city (which is the economic engine of the region) fails.

Who wants to go on vacation to a place where they spend most of their time traveling rather than seeing the sites because everything is so decentralized. Think of the most popular places around the world that people visit when they're vacationing. In most cases these places are cities like Paris, London, New York, San Francisco, Tokyo, Cairo, Rome, etc. Now think about where the main tourist attractions of each city are located in regard to each other. In most cases, they are all clustered together, which increases the draw power, if you will.

The suburbs don't seem to get this: the more we cluster our places of interest, the stronger the draw is as not only a place to live, work, and play, but also as a tourist destination. The more people who visit, the more money is put into our economy. The more money that is put into our economy, the more money there is to go around. Suburbs like Sandy are actually hurting themselves by competing with Salt Lake City.

Widening and building new freeways, promote sprawl. Sprawl promotes decentralization. Decentralization promotes inefficiency and missed opportunities for creating a world class city.

[Urban_logic]

One point that I'd like to make is that cities like New York, La La Land, and San Francisco do have a centralized urban core with other satellite clusters sorounding them. San Francisco is the main cultural center and tourist attractor in the Bay Area. However, Oakland and San Jose have comparable populations (San Jose is actually more populous than San Francisco). Each of these three major cities have full scale down towns and even their own international airports. The Bay Area is doing just fine with other "competing" urban cores. San Francisco is still the main center, but the other suburbs and adjacent cities have their own smaller attractions. Oakland and San Jose used to be suburbs, look at them now. As the populations grow, urban cores develop.

A region is made up of cities like a body is made up of muscles. The Bay Area has well-toned biscepts, chisled abs, powerfull thighs, and a strong chest. In the Wasatch Front, Urban boy wants only to bulk up the chest and arms while leaving the other muscles limp and weak. This presents a problem. Without strong legs to support the bulky upper-body, it will fall over. What good is a strong chest without strong arms?

Sandy will be a much smaller scale of SLC. People in and around Sandy will still go to down town SLC because it will still have stuff to draw them there - Temple Square, the U of U, CCC, etc. With efficient rail access, this will be easy for people to do. Sandy will draw SLC residents, SLC will draw Sandy residents. The key is to bring in unique features to one's urban center, not just xerox another one. If Sandy's down town and SLC's down town are different, people will go to both - Sandy residents will go into SLC for concerts and Jazz games, SLC residents will go to Sandy for soccer games and broadway performances.

I feel like we've gone full circle in this discussion and we aren't getting anywhere new. I think this is all I have to say regarding this issue.

[urbanboy]

Yeah, I don't think your analogy works, but nice try. Hopefully there won't be a broadway style theater in Sandy!

[delts145]

Your analogy makes total sense to me Urban logic, and I would think most on this forum. As far as the larger up-to-date theater, let's just put it in downtown SLC for now. Eventually, the southern part of Salt Lake Valley and northern Utah Valley will grow to a point where another large theater is justified. At the rate that the Sandy to American Fork area is growing now, it won't be long before many of these visionary projects will be warranted.

[Future Mayor]

One of the biggest flaws with the ever expanding suburbs and exurbs destroying the core is irrelevant in a region with population growth. In a region with population growth such as SLC and the majority of the west is that there are always new people to back fill many of the areas that are being vacated by those that want to live in the burbs, and want a larger house and yard (and not his isn't an insecurity issue), if people want to have 3 kids or 6 kids and want to live in a house were they don't feel like they are walking on top of each other THAT IS THERE CHOICE, it doesn't mean they are insecure. I'm not sure how a mother that wants to have her kids be able to play close to the house is insecure.

Anyway, in a region such as ours there will continue to be new ethnic groups and in migration for other states that continue to fill in the core and many people living in the burbs that choose to move into the core. The deterioration of the core with the expansion of the suburbs and exurbs is a problem in stagnant population growth areas like the east and mid-west, cities such as Cleveland, Detroit, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh, just to name a few.

The suburban growth of these areas rivals that of the WF, yet, for example, the Cleveland MSA has only grown by an estimated 2-5% in population over the the past 50 years, this is what leads to a decentralized and deteriorating core. Cleveland, population 1950 roughly 950,000, 2008 roughly 440,000. Cleveland has a downtown with amenities that could rival ANY city in the nation but the city neighborhoods and part of downtown suffer simply because of a stagnant population.

[DMTower]

Originally Posted by Urban_logic

A region is made up of cities like a body is made up of muscles. The Bay Area has well-toned biscepts, chisled abs, powerfull thighs, and a strong chest. In the Wasatch Front, Urban boy wants only to bulk up the chest and arms while leaving the other muscles limp and weak. This presents a problem. Without strong legs to support the bulky upper-body, it will fall over. What good is a strong chest without strong arms?

That analogy didn't quite work for me... It would make much more sense if you had compared Salt Lake to the heart muscle, which needs to be strongest of all... suburbs can be attributed to the different muscle groups, which need to be strong respectively, but well balanced so as not to cause injury to the surrounding "muscles"... If Salt Lake as the heart muscle isn't the strongest, it cannot fulfill its role of supporting all of the other muscles and the whole body (Wasatch front) fails.

[urbanboy]

Originally Posted by Future Mayor

One of the biggest flaws with the ever expanding suburbs and exurbs destroying the core is irrelevant in a region with population growth. In a region with population growth such as SLC and the majority of the west is that there are always new people to back fill many of the areas that are being vacated by those that want to live in the burbs, and want a larger house and yard (and not his isn't an insecurity issue), if people want to have 3 kids or 6 kids and want to live in a house were they don't feel like they are walking on top of each other THAT IS THERE CHOICE, it doesn't mean they are insecure. I'm not sure how a mother that wants to have her kids be able to play close to the house is insecure.

What's wrong with kids playing in the city? And yes, in many cases having a single family home is seen as having a certain status and being part of a class system. Therefore many base their decisions of where to live on a fear of being less than. Of course this fear is ridiculous, just like the fear of cities not being a safe place to raise children.

Anyway, in a region such as ours there will continue to be new ethnic groups and in migration for other states that continue to fill in the core and many people living in the burbs that choose to move into the core. The deterioration of the core with the expansion of the suburbs and exurbs is a problem in stagnant population growth areas like the east and mid-west, cities such as Cleveland, Detroit, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh, just to name a few.

Believe it or not, this is a problem here too.

The suburban growth of these areas rivals that of the WF, yet, for example, the Cleveland MSA has only grown by an estimated 2-5% in population over the the past 50 years, this is what leads to a decentralized and deteriorating core. Cleveland, population 1950 roughly 950,000, 2008 roughly 440,000. Cleveland has a downtown with amenities that could rival ANY city in the nation but the city neighborhoods and part of downtown suffer simply because of a stagnant population.

This is because developers are developing the suburbs faster than the population is growing. But this is happening here too my friend. Many new houses are sitting vacant in subdivisions across the state.