South Davis mayors seek light-rail study

Commuter rail isn't enough. Mayors from six Davis County cities are at it again, saying they need light-rail service into their communities.

In a Nov. 27 letter to Utah Transit Authority general manager John Inglish, the six mayors and Davis County Commissioner Dannie McConkie asked UTA to do feasibility and impact studies for bringing light rail into south Davis County.

Last summer, the mayors from Bountiful, Farmington, Centerville, Woods Cross, West Bountiful and North Salt Lake sent a similar letter to UTA, asking that ideas for a light-rail line into south Davis County get onto the Wasatch Front Regional Council's long-range plan.

"The purpose of this letter is more specific," Farmington Mayor David Connors said. He'd like to see combined studies for commuter rail and light rail. "We simply wanted to make sure they took it into account if in fact it's appropriate for them to do that."

UTA is currently in the midst of an environmental study to bring commuter rail through Davis County and up to Weber County. UTA gets its cues from Wasatch Front Regional Council, which already did a study showing that commuter rail into Davis County was the preferred alternative over light rail.

"We want to look at all the alternatives," UTA spokesman Kris McBride said. "But mixing those two studies may not be the way."

WFRC spokesman Sam Klemm said UTA could, on its own, do what's called a major investment study that looks at what types of transit are needed in a particular area. That is something the council has already done with its interregional corridor analysis.

"I don't think they want to reinvent the wheel and spend lots of money doing it."

The focus given to UTA by the regional council has been on getting light-rail spurs into West Valley and the cities on the Salt Lake Valley's southwest side. That's in addition to UTA concentrating on commuter rail and a light-rail spur from downtown Salt Lake City to the airport.

Light-rail funding for at least the next 10 years and possibly well beyond are essentially spoken for. But efforts in Davis County to get onto the Regional Council's 20- or 30-year plan is not out of the question.

"They just want to get on the plan right now," Klemm said. "We work for these guys — we have not forgotten that."

---

E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com