This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The Utah Transit Authority is adding longer TRAX trains and more frequent service for this week's Salt Lake Comic Con event at the Salt Palace. The popular convention in downtown Salt Lake City has helped UTA set ridership records twice previously.
UTA says it is adding longer trains on all TRAX lines on Thursday and Friday, and trains will operate on regular weekday schedules those days.
On Saturday, the TRAX blue line will offer more frequent trains — every 10 minutes from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. — while longer trains also will be offered on the blue and green lines.
UTA notes that Salt Lake Comic Con drew more than 130,000 attendees over three days last September. Because of that, UTA then set a three-day rail ridership record with 312,636 total rail boardings — nearly triple the average 125,900 boardings for a Thursday-Saturday period.
That broke the old record, which was also set during an earlier Comic Con weekend when UTA trains had a quarter-million boardings.
Comic Con is occurring at the same time as some other big events in downtown Salt Lake City. The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus will be in the EnergySolutions Arena from Thursday through Monday; the Utah Symphony has concerts on Friday and Saturday; and the LDS General Conference women's session is scheduled Saturday.
Because of all those events, parking availability downtown will be limited, so UTA is encouraging people to use mass transit.