The transit agency this week finalized a letter of intent with the Federal Transit Agency that calls for the federal government to pay for 20 percent of the overall cost of the projects, which has been estimated at about $2 billion.
In what UTA spokesman Chad Saley calls "an unprecedented event," the FTA agreed to provide funding for the five projects by viewing them as one collective undertaking.
"Rather than go through them one by one, this is the first time the FTA has agreed to look at a group of projects as one comprehensive program," Saley said Tuesday. "This will allow us to move much more quickly on all of these projects."
Technically speaking, the federal funding will provide 80 percent of the total financing needed to build the Mid-Jordan light rail line and the light rail extension to Draper. But spread across the board, that money will translate to 20 percent of the cost for all the projects. The balance of the tab will be funded locally.
"You have to have a local match for the federal dollars," Saley said. "In this case, we're using the other projects as the local match. But in the big picture, this benefits the program as a whole."
Because of that funding structure, the Mid-Jordan and Draper light rail lines will be the first to undergo full-blown federal environmental impact studies.
Saley says UTA's track record with its previous light rail projects made all the difference in selling the FTA on the idea of combining the five transit projects into one proposal.
"They looked at our history, at the projects we've done," he said. "We've routinely been ahead of schedule and under budget. All of that was taken into consideration."
With the federal funding issue at least unofficially settled, Saley says construction on two of the new light rail lines - probably the Mid-Jordan and West Valley City lines - could begin as early as next year. Construction on the Draper extension and the new line to Salt Lake City International Airport could begin as early as 18 months from now.
If that schedule holds, the mid-Jordan and West Valley lines, and the commuter rail extension from Salt Lake City to Provo, could be finished by 2012. The airport line and Draper extension could be done by 2013 or 2014, Saley said. "We've committed to have all the lines done by 2015. If it goes faster, that's certainly our goal," he said.
