So I've been thinking about transit to Tooele again. Not a super high priority, but I think there needs to be a plan in place so that we don't go making it harder for ourselves later on.
For example, there is a neat abandoned railroad Right-Of-Way between Salt Lake Central Station and the Jordan River. This is being considered for something called the
Folsom Trail, which wants to use the entire corridor for a trail and landscaping.
Current:
Proposed:
Normally I would be totally in love with this idea. But in this case, I think they also need to leave room for two transit tracks as well. Here is why:
1) We all known Tooele is going to increase in population.
2) Tooele has been very loyal to transit, voting for higher service from UTA when even Salt Lake and Utah Counties voted against it.
3) There are railroad tracks that go from Tooele right into downtown Salt Lake City.
Even if Tooele won't ever be large enough to justify a fully built-out commuter rail system like FrontRunner, there are still ways to run trains to Tooele that make sense. I propose something like Austin's
MetroRail, Oceanside's
Sprinter, or Denton County Texas'
A-Train. These are rail lines that are sort of 'light commuter rail,' using Diesel Multiple Units rather than locomotives and cars to handle lighter loads than a heavy commuter train, but still traveling farther and making fewer stops than light rail.
I propose a line from Salt Lake Central Station to Tooele, starting on the west side of the tracks:
From here it will head north and squeeze between the freight track and I-15. From there, it will travel down the abandoned ROW being eyed by the Folsom corridor:
As you can see, the existing freight tracks are about a block north, but unfortunately they have no extra space beside them for a new transit line. Many buildings would need to be torn down and many more parcels would need to be acquired in order to make room for two new tracks. What's worse, is that if the Folsom corridor gets built as planned, these buildings will probably be torn down anyway and new housing built beside it, and these new apartments will almost certainly not leave space for a transit line.
There's also one more thing. After traveling along the abandoned ROW, the two new transit tracks will be perfectly lined up to cross over the existing freight tracks in a flyover bridge. The bridge will be steep, but Diesel Multiple Units can climb surprisingly tough stuff; I've done the math, a bridge like this one will work:
From there the line will go out to Tooele, a distance of 33 miles, making these stops:
- Salt Lake Central
- Airport Connector
- 5600 West
- Saltair (probably an infill station for later)
- Lake Point
- Bates Canyon Road
- Tooele Main Street
The complete map would look like this:
A link to the google map for those who are more interested:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1I2...nm&usp=sharing
This is pretty far-out still, I think, since I haven't heard anyone discussing a Tooele rail line in a while. But as I said before, it is really important that we have a plan for these things so that we don't go filling up all the available ROW's with nature before we know if we need them for transit or not.
I'm not against the Folsom Trail, I just think there is room for a trail, some landscaping, and transit, just like the S-Line, or the TRAX Draper extension:
To finish, here are some pictures of the Sprinter Line:
This is totally something that we should do.
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