Valley may get interim rail

Commuter rail may arrive in Utah Valley sooner than expected.

Negotiations are under way between local transportation officials and Union Pacific Railroad to develop a temporary, peak-hour commuter rail service that would connect Utah Valley to Salt Lake City as soon as 2011.

If an agreement can be reached, the Utah Transit Authority would operate passenger train service between Salt Lake City and Provo on the existing U.P. freight line during I-15's peak morning and evening traffic hours, said Darrell Cook, executive director of the Mountainland Association of Governments.

The interim commuter rail service is one of 13 projects local transportation officials say need to be completed before the expected start of the four-year reconstruction of I-15 in Utah County in 2012.

MAG and the Utah Department of Transportation are on board with the temporary rail project, which according to preliminary estimates would cost about $92 million.

UTA likes the idea, too, but wants to see commuter rail become more than a temporary fix.

"It's time for an alternative to I-15 in Utah County," said UTA spokesman Justin Jones. "This can be an exciting temporary solution, and we feel like commuter rail can become a permanent solution to the congestion issues in Utah County."

The four proposed stops on the temporary rail service would be in Murray, Thanksgiving Point, Orem and Provo, Jones said.

UTA owns right of way from Brigham City to Payson, he said, which allows for new track to be laid alongside the existing Union Pacific tracks.

Using the U.P. freight track would "save tens of millions of dollars" in getting the interim rail up and running, Jones said, but rail cars would still need to be purchased, and stations and parking lots would need to be built.

"We would want to do this with the assumption that it would become permanent at some point," he said. "You don't want to make the investment of parking lots, stations and rail cars only to scrap them when the I-15 construction is over."

An agreement with UTA is only one of the deals that must be worked out, said Dave Nazare, UDOT's Region 3 director.

"The 800-pound gorilla in the room is Union Pacific Railroad," Nazare said.

U.P.'s initial response was, "No way," Nazare said, but the negotiations didn't stop there.