The Utah Transit Authority is pursuing federal funding for its Draper and Mid-Jordan TRAX extensions. But that process requires the agency to study potential impacts on the area in greater detail.

Among other things, that new study will look at how trains would impact nearby homes if light-rail runs along a UTA-owned rights-of-way. One of those is the former Union Pacific line that snakes through Draper's east side.

Draper resident Summer Pugh - she is spearheading a group effort to steer the alignment away from homes and has helped take Draper City to the Utah Supreme Court to force an election on the issue - is pleased UTA is studying the alignments in greater detail.

"[It] will address a lot of our concerns, particularly land use," Pugh said. "This entire [city- and UTA-preferred] route is all low-density, low-impact, quiet, rural-feeling life. When people purchased and built homes here, they depended on the master plan that did not include public transit."

UTA spokesman Chad Saley said the environmental-impact study (EIS), expected to begin in the next two months and proceed for up to 18 months, will include public hearings and address many of the issues concerning Pugh and Citizens for Responsible Transportation (CRT).

"We look at vibration. We look at noise. We look at visual impacts. We look at traffic impacts, costs - the list goes on," said Saley, who stressed his agency is simply taking the next step to get federal funds - not restarting its entire study.

This more in-depth analysis will also look at a proposed State Street route farther to the west, which CRT has touted as a more-viable option. And, Saley added, UTA has already heard from several people recommending other alternative routes, including one west of Interstate 15.

But many Draper residents want TRAX at UTA's right of way along the southeast Salt Lake Valley city's eastern edge.

Resident Larry Jensen said the city has been planning for light rail along the former Union Pacific tracks for 10 years and has even given rides down the proposed route to show residents what would be coming in the future.

"Draper literally sits on a threshold of an opportunity to be the most walkable, bikable and probably livable, community in the Salt Lake Valley," Jensen said. "Nowhere else . . . is there an opportunity to have public mass transit right there, adjacent to where the people live instead of an industrial corridor."

He said that would be a huge benefit to people who live in Draper over the next 100 years as gas prices continue to rise. But, he said, the proposed alternative routes along State Street or west of I-15 would be astronomically costly and engineering nightmares.

UTA now wants federal funds for 80 percent of the Draper project, which was once thought to be a locally funded route. The agency's Saley said the need stems from the plethora of projects UTA is trying to complete by 2015, including four light-rail extensions and a commuter-rail line from Salt Lake City to Provo.

The commuter-rail line from Salt Lake City to Pleasant View north of Ogden is scheduled to open next year.

Voters gave UTA some sales-tax revenue for its efforts when they cast ballots in 2006, but those funds are not ample to fund all the coming projects - nor has that money been freed up. Salt Lake and Utah counties must sign an interlocal agreement to authorize that money.

Saley expects that to happen in the next month.

And even if UTA sees this EIS as another step in the process, Pugh said it's a welcome opening.

"This is opening back up for study. It's opening back up for public input, for alternative suggestions," she said. "We think that's a positive turn of events."

sgehrke@sltrib.com