All TRAX trains will stop at Central Station again

All trains will head to Salt Lake Central Station, after all.

Beginning Nov. 1, all Utah Transit Authority light-rail trains will stop at the intermodal hub, called the Salt Lake Central Station, 250 S. 600 West, after UTA briefly tried ending some of the train routes at the Arena Station, 301 W. South Temple.

"We've been doing it for a month," UTA spokesman Gerry Carpenter said. "There was some initial backlash. People don't like to transfer" if they need to get from the Arena to Central stations.

Businesses at The Gateway, such as Clark Planetarium, also complained to UTA that children using mass transit may be unsafe walking along 400 West to get from the Arena Station to the planetarium.

People were confused, Carpenter said, about which trains ended at the arena and which ones ended at the Central Station. "This is going to make it simpler," Carpenter said.

On Aug. 23 UTA began scheduling TRAX from Sandy to end at the arena and TRAX from the University of Utah to end at the Central Station.

The reason for the change was because the public wanted more trains from Sandy to head directly to the U. Since that new TRAX route was going to cost UTA extra money, UTA schedulers thought that ending Sandy routes at the Arena Station would save some money.

However, UTA warns that not all trains in the future will end at Salt Lake Central.

"We've got three new light-rail lines that will be coming on in the next three years — West Valley, Mid-Jordan and the Airport line," Carpenter said. "They're not all going to be able to go to the same places. Rail traffic is going to more than double. We're going to have to be very careful in how we schedule these to help people get where they need to go, especially in the downtown area."

While the upcoming TRAX lines will head to the general downtown vicinity, some routes might end at the U. or at other Salt Lake stations, Carpenter said.

e-mail: lhancock@desnews.com

TWITTER: laurahancock