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:
- Move Salt Lake Central Station to the Rio Grande Depot and abandon the current station infrastructure
- Run Frontrunner, Amtrak, and the future east-west commuter rail lines down a trench below 500 West
- 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.
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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?
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