A seven-lane collector street that to pedestrians approximates an SUV-age running of the bulls, Salt Lake City's western portal and airport access is hardly, or barely, walkable. Or pretty. Many neighbors complain that it's a barrier to drive past on their way to better shopping districts, so they don't even count its aging motels, check-cashing stores and fast-food joints as parts of their neighborhood.

Now, city planners see the coming of light rail to Salt Lake City International Airport as their one shot to reshape both the street and the west side that it's supposed to serve. They prescribe an attitude correction for the capital's maladjusted mile, slowing traffic and putting people on the sidewalks of a "grand boulevard."

"We have an asset with 132 feet of right-of-way out there and we ought to take advantage of that," city transportation director Tim Harpst said. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

He'll huddle with transit and city planners this week for the first brainstorming session about beautifying the corridor and resurrecting street life after light rail takes up two of the traffic lanes. He and other city staffers have coined the "grand boulevard" phrase in recent hearings about the plans to lay tracks sometime around 2011 or soon thereafter.

Once drafted, the plan would cost the city millions to build.

The rough idea is to replace two lanes with tracks in the middle of the street and trees, bicycle lanes and wider sidewalks to the sides. The light-rail cars are meant to handle some of the traffic pushed from the road.

The boulevard concept with fewer traffic lanes would extend across the Union Pacific Railroad viaduct at 500 West, where the street crosses into downtown Salt Lake City. That means cyclists and walkers could avoid the sketchy gauntlet they currently face: under the viaduct and past the rusty chain-link fences and graffiti-sprayed "No Trespassing" rail yard signs, then up a concrete switchback onto a pedestrian bridge.

It's there that neighborhood activist Vicky Orme stops to lament, and envision what could be. The neighborhoods nearby have such potential, she said, but their access to downtown is littered with soda cans, newspapers and, for those walking under the bridge, fear.

Trudging up the walkway as a freight train screeched by, she imagined tourists getting their first glimpse of the city center.

"Welcome to Salt Lake City. Enjoy your stay," she said.

Orme gets an almost-daily reminder of the problem in her work managing the KOA Kampground at 1400 W. North Temple. The RV park is heavily visited by European tourists, many of whom prefer to walk to the sights. She tries to warn them, but they hear that it's just 1.7 miles to downtown. Some of them come back frightened.

She's happy that the Diamond Lil's steakhouse has reopened, though it remains sandwiched by the Overniter Motel and a storage center.

She wants a coffee shop - any coffee shop - for North Temple. A copy shop would be nice, too. Anything that people might walk to and use in their daily lives will help.

"Today, this isn't conducive to walking," Orme said, pointing to where a broken sidewalk passes a vacant lot by a freeway bridge and the neighborhood plasma-donation center. "Look at the size of those weeds over there, and under [Interstate 15]. Then you've got all these plastic cups people get with their juice when they give blood every month."

It's also not great for cycling, though city bicycle committee chairman Dave Iltis said the area is an important link from downtown to longer rides on the airport trail and to the lakeside Saltair complex beyond. Most look for a bypass, though.

"North Temple is a scary nightmare," Iltis said. "Third North, which is also a bike route, is subject to parked trains." The grand boulevard link would be "a fantastic thing for cyclists."

Salt Lake Neighborhood Housing Services has invested in rebuilding the residential areas around North Temple, and executive director Maria Garciaz said expectations are rising. What's missing is a community center.

"Outside of being hungry, there's nothing there that's really going to make you want to stop and spend your money," Garciaz said.

It's changing, slowly. Recently a team of negotiators for the neighborhoods attracted the first ice cream parlor.

The last census showed 54,000 people living in the Glendale, Poplar Grove, Fairpark and Rose Park - all neighborhoods that Garciaz said would flock to North Temple if they had a reason. Then there are thousands of state office workers.

"We're hoping this [plan] will really slow traffic down and make people realize the assets this neighborhood has," she said.

Slowing the traffic is something that many of the office workers at the Utah Department of Natural Resources think about every day. The offices, near the intersection with Redwood Road, are directly across seven lanes from the Apollo Burger, but not conveniently close to a crossing light.

"You just have to pick your gaps and run," said Mike Handy, a DNR employee who was enjoying some sunshine Friday on a parking lot bench outside his office. Looking toward the intersection, beyond the lunch-hour queues at the next-door KFC, A&W and Burger King windows, he acknowledged he usually won't walk that far for a light.

"It's quicker to just take your chances."

City officials and neighborhood activists expect the narrower street to be easier to cross, and with mid-block opportunities around light rail stations.

That part sounds good to Handy, especially if gasoline remains around $3 a gallon and he starts riding the new FrontRunner train and TRAX light rail from his Davis County home.

North Temple's future

Projected TRAX ridership on airport line:

* 10,000 on opening day

* 14,000 by 2030

Average traffic times on length of North Temple:

* Westbound, 5.25 minutes today, 6.92 minutes with lane reductions

* Eastbound, 5.19 minutes today, 6.13 with lane reductions

Source: Utah Transit Authority