Quote:
Originally Posted by Stenar
I recently found an article in the newspaper archives that said the original plans for Frontrunner were to make it underground at the Gateway and use the old UP station. Unfortunately, I didn't save the link. I was looking for something else at the time.
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If you happen to find that link again I would be very interested to give it a look.
As I wrote in an
earlier post, I don't think it's too late to relocate our transit hub in Salt Lake to the historic depots. It would be pretty expensive to completely replace our two downtown stations with new platforms at the two historic depots, but it could be done and it would almost certainly be a great benefit to our city.
(My plan also requires the Ogden Union Depot to be put back into service as well, for both FrontRunner and Amtrak, due to how trains would be routed through Salt Lake City. For the approximate cost of Denver rebuilding their historic depot, we would get 3 historic depots put back into service. Link to Google Map:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1SXcydSa60h5BYcULl6QyFejv8TU&usp=sharing)
...or, we could forget ripping out our current Salt Lake Central Station and North Temple Viaduct Stations and just, you know,
make them better. If Salt Lake Central Station can ever be completed - replacing the miserable Amtrak double-wide trailer with a nice modern depot building for passengers of all modes - I think it would go a long way towards improving the transit experience in that area. Add in a LRT line on 400 South to complete a loop so that there is a free downtown circulator route, then thrown in a streetcar line or two converging on the depot, and suddenly the place isn't so far away as it seems now. As for the Gateway, what if it expanded northward to have better and more inviting access to the North Temple station? currently between North Temple and 50N street there is nothing but a parking lot fronted with the uninviting backside of the gateway stores. Why not extend the pedestrian experience through that area and have it end at the FrontRunner station?
I'm still totally on board with the reuse of the old depots. That is the ideal (or my version of it, anyway). But since we can't always get the ideal, and no one seems willing to spend the hundreds of millions of $$$ it will take to replace two existing commuter rail stations with two other commuter rail stations one block farther east, it is worth looking at what can be done with what we have. You know, spend 25% of the larger project's costs to get 80% of the larger project's benefits. Is that heresy?
Modern train stations can be just as good as old ones. Just look at
Anaheim:
Often, the newer stations are even better than old ones, because they are tailor-made to the traffic patterns of a more modern city. Like the UP depot was good and all, but it wasn't built for commuter trains. The process of transferring between commuter rail and LRT at Salt Lake Central is the simplest it could ever be. My trench-and-historic-depots idea can't compete with that. And don't even mention transferring to local and intercity buses to the historic depot plan - it completely ignores that problem.
I don't know. I'm torn. I think I'll be happy either way, just so long as it goes one way or another. Complete our new "Central" station and send more LRT there, and better integrate both stations into the urban fabric of SLC. Or completely remove the currents stations and use the historic ones. One or the other. This current arrangement of transit platforms (not really stations) hidden away on the fringes without basic travel amenities needs to be addressed soon.
Ogden, however, has no excuses. That station totally needs to be reconfigured to accommodate FrontRunner and Amtrak. Everything from my map/plan concerning Ogden still applies.
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