Supporters of a citizen-developed plan to bury downtown Salt Lake City’s rail lines and restore train service to the historic Rio Grande Depot met the proposal’s most influential audience yet Wednesday morning.
The Utah Legislature’s bicameral Interim Transportation Committee hosted supporters of the Rio Grande Plan at its monthly meeting, giving them a chance to explain the proposal. The plan’s backers, on the other hand, aimed to convince lawmakers that the $3-5 billion project needs an official economic benefits study and should receive funding priority from the state.
The committee did not take any action on the item, but the plan did draw interest from some lawmakers, including from the committee’s chair, Rep. Kay Christofferson, R-Lehi.
“It would be worth looking at some more,” Christofferson told supporters. “I just know it will be a challenge on the funding. That’s the biggest challenge I see.”
The plan presented to the committee would bury the train tracks along 500 West from 1300 South to roughly 50 North, as well as the east-west spur to 1000 West. Aside from restoring service to the Rio Grande Depot, the proposal would eliminate dangerous and annoying street-level railroad crossings, healing the city’s east-west divide at its original source.
Characterizing the idea as the state’s next big move, plan architect Christian Lenhart and supporter Frederick Jenny laid out the benefits of the plan, highlighting the walkability of the depot to the rest of downtown, new development opportunities that come with burying the tracks, and the possibility of putting the shuttered, state-owned station to good use.
An August 2023 Salt Lake City analysis of the plan estimated the entire project could cost up to $5 billion. According to a financing strategies document created by plan supporters, $2.2 billion could come from state transportation funds and a state-issued bond.
Jenny asked legislators on Wednesday to prioritize the plan for state transportation funding and to pay for a study looking into the economic benefits of the idea.
“We have the cost. Salt Lake City gave us the cost,” Jenny said. “But they did not give us that other half of the equation, right? We always get, for example, with freeways, ‘it’s going to cost us $4 billion but it’s going to give us $12 billion of impact for our economy.’ This project needs the same thing.”
West-side legislators Sen. Karen Kwan, D-West Valley City, and Rep. Brett Garner, D-West Valley City, indicated their support for further studying the plan. Garner said Salt Lake Central — the existing, exposed concrete platforms on 600 West where Amtrak, FrontRunner and TRAX Blue Line trains arrive — will never be a true transit hub. Further study, he said, would help finalize costs and get private rail companies like Union Pacific and Patriot Rail on board.
Suburban Reps. Karen Peterson, R-Clinton, and Candice Pierucci, R-Herriman, balked at prioritizing an expensive Salt Lake City-based project when their communities still have little ability to even get to a restored Rio Grande Depot.
“Frankly, 5 billion bucks is a lot of money and there are a lot of needs across the state,” Peterson said. “My residents would really like transit to just be an option for them. The west side of my district doesn’t have any transit at all. So, a station downtown doesn’t really help them because they still can’t even get there.”
The presentation was not an action item and the committee did not take a vote to fund a study or prioritize the project. It’s unclear if or when the proposal could be in front of lawmakers again.
The pitch to lawmakers comes after the Salt Lake County Council voted last month to endorse the plan.
