Foothill transit plan forgoes light rail

Foothill Drive looks like a "parking lot" during rush hour and on game days, but car-pooland express bus lanes could help ease traffic along the busy corridor, planners told the Salt Lake City Council recently.

Hearing the results of the $20,000 study, council members said they were disappointed and unlikely to consider any plan that did not include light rail.

"What a wasted opportunity," Councilman Luke Garrott said. "I don't see much of a difference other than widened sidewalks."

The study by the Wasatch Front Regional Council suggests adding left-turn lanes onto Sunnyside Avenue, limiting outside lanes to car pools and express buses during peak hours and turning the center lane into a reversible lane that would handle traffic toward the university in the morning and away from the university in the evening.

Doug Hattery, of the Wasatch Front Regional Council, said the study also calls for wider sidewalks and improved bicycle paths along the corridor.

Those changes would be years off, Hattery said, and the study only serves as a suggestion, which would require cooperation from the city, the Department of Transportation and the Utah Transit Authority.

Even so, several council members voiced their disappointment with the study, calling it "yesterday's plan."

"We cannot continue on yesterday's plan," Councilman JT Martin said. "We cannot go the way we've been going. We have to have less cars, not more. We have to promote rapid transit."

Martin and Garrott said they would like to see light rail that stretches to the University of Utah, Research Park, the Hogle Zoo and even Park City.

"We need a train to Park City — bad," Garrott said.

In its study, however, the Regional Council said "rail transit does not seem to fit the corridor needs, at least for now." According to the study, a streetcar line would not attract enough riders. TRAX could be an option down the line but would have to be developed as a regional service that extends farther south, according to the study.

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