This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Maybe the way to fill TRAX and FrontRunner trains is to have more Salt Lake Comic Con conventions.
The Utah Transit Authority set a new three-day rail ridership record last weekend, thanks to the Salt Lake Comic Con — along with other events held then in downtown Salt Lake City, including the Greek Festival and a University of Utah football game.
UTA had 312,636 total rail boardings on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. That is nearly triple the average 125,900 for a Thursday-Saturday period.
A boarding is anytime anyone enters a train — so a trip with a transfer is counted as two boardings.
It breaks the old record, which was also set during an earlier Comic Con convention weekend when UTA trains had a quarter-million boardings.
"That is huge. That is gigantic," UTA President and CEO Michael Allegra told a UTA board committee meeting on Wednesday. "You could not get seats, but I'm not complaining. That market is growing. It is nice to see."
UTA spokesman Remi Barron said, "We ran mostly four-car TRAX trains [the longest possible] and increased the frequency" to handle crowds. He noted that UTA is able to increase train size and frequency to meet demand.
"By all accounts, everything went smoothly," Barron said.
Extra TRAX trains were also added before and after the university football game.
UTA said it had 105,431 rail boardings last Thursday, 108,091 on Friday and 99,114 on Saturday.