Salt Lake City: A Red State Capital Builds Ambitious Transit

According to Congress for New Urbanism President John Norquist, the Salt Lake City area has the fastest growing rail system in America. And as Streetsblog’s Angie Schmitt pointed out last month, “It’s the only city in the country building light rail, bus rapid transit, streetcars and commuter rail at the same time.”

Since the late 1990s, SLC certainly has embarked on a very ambitious program of transit construction. In 2006, residents voted to invest more and expedite the implementation of the system. This May the city opened its newest light rail line, to the airport, and in December the Sugar House streetcar is scheduled to open.

SLC does have a lot of catching up to do. The region as a whole is still built around the car. In this brief clip, Norquist talks about the lack of transit-oriented development at stops outside the downtown. I also don’t love the gigantic widths of neighborhood streets, which I mentioned in my write up of exploring the city while trying out bike-share. But as Norquist points out, these are all opportunities to transform things for the better.

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

Salt Lake City, Rising Transit Star

By Angie Schmitt |
On the roster of cities making progress on green transportation in the western U.S., you have the usual suspects like Portland and Denver. But in terms of building track miles and adding busways, the city on the fastest pace might just be Salt Lake City, Utah. Over the last decade, the capital of the reddest […]

McCain’s Transit Hit List: Get the Details

By Elana Schor |
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), a self-styled foe of what he labels wasteful government spending, has launched a broadside against transit projects in the U.S. DOT’s 2010 spending bill, which is slated for a vote this week in the upper chamber of Congress. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) (Photo: Scrape TV) McCain had proposed more than 20 […]

Now Arriving: Transit-Oriented Development

By Sarah Goodyear |
Much of the talk on the Streetsblog Network in the past few days, perhaps prompted by the recently concluded Congress for the New Urbanism conference, is about transit-oriented development. The real estate crisis, it seems, may finally be pushing the issue into the mainstream. Photo of housing near a new light rail line by Light […]