Midvale » A federal funding agreement that assures completion of the Mid-Jordan TRAX line is the surest signal that Utah's burgeoning transit system is maturing, Midvale Mayor JoAnn Seghini said Friday at a signing ceremony.
The $428.3 million that the Federal Transit Administration delivered Friday to the Utah Transit Authority marks tremendous progress since Salt Lake Valley voters initially rejected a tax for light rail in the 1990s, she said. This line to West Jordan and others to West Valley City, Draper and the Salt Lake City International Airport will complete a web of transportation alternatives that was hard to imagine when a single rail line opened from Sandy to Salt Lake City in 1999.
"The north-south line is no longer just a line," Seghini said. "We are seeing an integral part of a system."
The Mid-Jordan line, splitting from the north-south line at 6400 South and leading to the Rio Tinto Group's new Daybreak development, is now at least 25 percent complete and on schedule to open in December 2011, according to UTA. Most of the finished work involves signal installation and engineering, rather than track laying.
The grant agreement formally approved Friday represents 80 percent of the project's cost. UTA will cover the rest through sales taxes.
Acting FTA Administrator Sherry Little presented the grant and praised Utah for being at the forefront of a transportation revolution. UTA's start of a rail program back during the buildup to the 2002 Winter Olympics, she added, positions it to have one of the nation's most extensive systems.
"Salt Lake City has been, is and will continue to be ahead of the curve in public transportation," Little said.
The Bush administration has funded the most mass-transit projects in U.S. history, Little said after the ceremony, and she believes the Obama administration will continue the funding stream even in difficult financial times.
"I anticipate that when the Obama folks see future gas prices going up and people sitting in their cars in traffic, they will want to pursue other options," Little said. "I'm really pretty optimistic about the future."
Friday's ceremony was in a vacant lot just east of the rail line's future Gardner Village stop, near the Jordan River. The area is fast being encircled by the plywood walls of unfinished apartments and condominiums along the future rail route. UTA officials said such development, coupled with the massive transit-accessible housing construction emerging at Daybreak, demonstrate the power of rail lines to reshape the valley.
"It's going to be one of the prime places for people to live in this area," UTA General Manager John Inglish said.
The Mid-Jordan line is part of UTA's plans to build 70 miles of new rails by 2015, including the other TRAX lines and a diesel-powered FrontRunner commuter-rail extension from Salt Lake City to Provo.
The Utah Transit Authority is studying the possibility of several streetcar lines to link neighborhoods to TRAX, and Salt Lake City has included several in its request for federal economic-stimulus funding under consideration in Congress.
But because the stimulus program is meant to create jobs quickly, it could be tough for Utah's projects to snag money ahead of projects elsewhere that have completed environmental documentation, said Sherry Little, acting administrator of the Federal Transit Administration.
The incoming administration could suspend environmental-permitting rules to speed up projects, she said, but otherwise many other cities are prepared to start work.
"There are projects around the country that are [waiting] on the shelf," she said.
Brandon Loomis
» The $428 million federal grant represents 80 percent of the Mid-Jordan line's cost.
» The line will stretch 10.6 miles from Midvale to South Jordan.
» Work is 25 percent complete and is expected to wrap up in late 2011.
» By 2030, the Mid-Jordan line is expected to carry 9,500 passengers.
