Are You In Favor of A More Centralized TRAX?

Well, I most certainly am. I am of sound mind that TRAX is the way of the future for Salt Lake City. Some might argue that the TRAX future is already here, but I don’t think we’ve quite accomplished all we can. I recently rode the FrontRunner train all the way to Layton. I was going to ride it up to Ogden, but decided to save that for a later time. Well, I was really impressed with the FrontRunner that day. I still am, in fact. It runs up to Woods Cross, up to Lagoon (although, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how one was to actually get to Lagoon over the freeway), then to my stop in Layton, and after that it hits Clearfield, Roy, Ogden, and even goes further on to Pleasant View.

Now, I’ve seen the plans for future lines going out further from the city. I’m all for the Airport line. I think that might prove to be one of the most useful!

Of course, West-Valley and Mid-Jordan lines will help commuters make their way in and out of the city more easily. And I even like the idea of the Draper line…but not so much. What I really think we need are more TRAX lines running within the city. There are a great many people who need to get from A to B and they’re still not helped by the trains. Sure, some people can make their way from Point A to a station, and then ride on their merry way straight to Point B, or work where the train gets off, but there are a great deal of people who live and work in very separate parts of town, and neither live, nor work anywhere near a TRAX station. And with this fledgling economy, it’s no longer very accurate to assume that anyone living in a suburban area can afford a  car to drive to work every day.

The point I’m trying to make is that many of us need TRAX to create more rail lines around the central point of the city and work outward. These trains are an amazing thing for us to have in this city and I really feel we can someday reach the public transport level of New York City. No, we’re not going to try to model our entire metro area after NYC, but I feel public transportation only betters the world around us. But buses are going to fade away soon, and they very well should. We as people can’t afford to continue sending those things out on the road every day when each bus gets less than nine miles to the gallon!! That’s surely a big chunk of money that can be injected into the fast-running system we’re growing to love in these modern days.

Now, let’s return to what I said earlier. It’s not that I don’t support the concept of a TRAX line to Draper. It’s just that I think we should wait. It excites that explorer/wanderer spirit inside of me, but that’s exactly my point. I don’t see the use in a practical sense. To me, it seems more like an expansion project, but an empty one at that. I would someday love to see trains that run across this entire state! I really would! But my keyword is “someday.” I would right now love to see our money go to setting this thing up properly and growing our number of local trains.