This fall, Salt Lake City officials are poised to pick 600 West instead of 400 West as a rejiggered route to connect airport light-rail trains from North Temple to the downtown transit hub on 200 South. Though vetted by engineers - powerful property owner The Boyer Co. also approves - the plan represents a sudden shift.

Capital planners insist the 600 West route is the cleanest and cheapest - a TRAX bridge off North Temple Street would need to be only 30 feet wide - and they argue the residential fear factor is overblown.

But neighbors respond that they are getting railroaded by the transit scheme, which they call the latest west-side slight.

"It seems like they want to dump all their stuff down here," says Sharon Martines, who lives in her grandparents' fixed-up home on 600 West with husband Bob, but may inherit a view of a train overpass. "This side of the community is just starting to build up, and now, all of the sudden, they want to put another viaduct in. These city officials say they want to protect communities; I don't think they do."

The Martineses have rehabilitated nine homes that they now rent to families just north of North Temple on 600 West. But now, the landlords lament, the tightknit neighborhood stands to see pillars from their front porches - and could be boxed in by bridges.

Bob Martines also worries the project will attract crime and become a haven for the homeless. "It's going to be an ungodly looking structure down here," he says.

Nothing is decided yet. The public can sound off in two weeks, while a City Council vote is not expected until November.

Still, a technical committee composed of city staffers, Utah Transit Authority officials and Utah Department of Transportation representatives have endorsed the 600 West plan.

"Looking at access issues, engineering, it's looking like that one is better," says UTA spokesman Chad Saley.

Doug Dansie, the city's senior planner, says either option requires building a TRAX bridge to North Temple. But since downtown streets measure 132 feet wide, he says a 30-foot-tall, 30-foot-wide structure would not become a major obstruction.

"This is more on scale with the pedestrian crossways on Bangerter Highway than it is the [current] North Temple viaduct," Dansie says. "We're not talking about a viaduct."

He concedes the recommendation marks a change in plans, but says early blueprints were conceived when FrontRunner commuter rail "was just a dream."

Dansie also notes the design includes single lanes for vehicles on each side of 600 West as well as room for parking.

But the biggest concerns are geography and congestion, according to Daniel Pacheco, community-affairs director for Salt Lake Neighborhood Housing Services, a nonprofit that has invested millions in west-side housing.

He points to the 155 Citifront apartments at the corner of 600 West and North Temple. Add to that The Bridges at Citifront, a 295-unit condo project with grassy courtyards planned just to the south.

"It doesn't make logical sense," Pacheco says. "Another bridge, another wall. It cages us in."

A fledgling opposition movement, dubbed the Bridge Investment Group, argues the 600 West route will detract from a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood, hinder parking, create a safety hazard for vehicle traffic and create a potential trap.

Indeed, Sharon Martines fears, residents could be sitting ducks in the event of an earthquake.

Jon Robinson, a 15-year resident on 600 West, agrees the new bridge - especially with the wires above the trains - is "not only a nuisance but unnecessary."

"It will be a dividing factor for the neighborhood and a view problem," he says.

Since the North Temple viaduct is nearing the end of its life span, Robinson notes, the city should rebuild it now and combine it with TRAX.

Maria Garciaz, executive director of Neighborhood Housing Services, concurs, calling the new plan shortsighted.

"You have an existing viaduct," she says. "Why not look at that as the primary option?"

No cash to do it, says Dansie, who also explains that a 400 West route would wipe out a traffic turn lane and require a "property take" on the corner.

What's more, Dansie says, Boyer - the developer is planning a hotel and parking structure on five acres between 400 West and 500 West near 50 North - wants the 600 West route.

"Right now 600 West came up tops in every category except for speed and community impacts," Dansie says. "And even the speed is questionable."

Indeed, the new course would take passengers from the airport directly to the transit hub, instead of nearer to downtown.

And that poses another problem, according to Fairpark Community Council Chairwoman Victoria Orme.

"Tourists would prefer going downtown than to a transit hub," Orme says. "They just won't use the service."

djensen@sltrib.com

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* PATTY HENETZ contributed to this story.