Inglish: It will be dense, significantly denser from a population point of view. The areas that are open now will be largely filled in. In terms of transit, you won't need a car. You'll be able to get throughout the region on good public transit: bus, train, light rail, heavy rail, gondola — whatever. Those systems will be there because we'll need them to go around. Twenty-five to 30 years from now, you won't need a car to get around.

Deseret Morning News: Why are you so confident in saying that?

Inglish: The systems are already beginning to be put into place. If we put together the first phase of the light-rail 2030 plan, the entire county — 70 percent — will be within two to three miles of a rail station, which means the bus system will fill in and create the connections. I believe once that basis, that foundation is begun, we're going to start extending those lines, and within 30 years there will be lines far beyond what we've got on paper today, even.

Deseret Morning News: Critics say transit is not worth the cost.

Inglish: Not worth it? How could it not be worth it? That's like going to New York and saying the subway wasn't worth it. It wouldn't be a New York without a subway. Maybe that's good, I don't know. But of course it's good. Is the freeway worth it? Is getting to work efficiently and reliably and effectively and cheaply worth it? . . . It's now becoming apparent that what everybody has been saying about the greenhouse gases, about all of this, is probably true and it may be accelerated. So we've got to find a different way to move ourselves around without so much reliance on oil. We've got to find other ways to move people. We have to. It isn't, "Wouldn't that be nice." It's beginning to be a have to. And public transit, that's exactly what it does. It gives us a means of moving around large volumes of people, efficiently, effectively, reliably and cheaply. Oh my gosh, I don't know how someone could say it's not worth it. The actual trip by a person on public transit is one-third the cost of driving a car. It's cheap. . . .

Deseret Morning News: Paint a picture. If TRAX is built-out, if commuter rail is built, what is it going to look like in the valley?

Inglish: I used to think it looked like an umbrella, at least the Salt Lake County portion. You had a central corridor and a spray of bus routes that were serving those areas near the central business district. Ultimately, the better look, it's a bit of a skeleton with a central spine and arms that branch out east and west across the region. We're basically pretty well laid out to be a north-south, east-west system. . . . It ends up being a network that emanates from the central spine, and there will probably be a north to south corridor, particularly, on the west side and probably some down the east side. That will be much more difficult to do. It ends up becoming almost a grid.

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E-mail: nwarburton@desnews.com