A delighted group of business owners, residents and politicians watched as a light rail train smashed through a wall of red paper announcing “TRAX to U.”
The university light rail line opened for business at midday Dec. 15 to hundreds of passengers.
Light rail “is no longer a line, it is a system,” announced John Inglish, general manager of the Utah Transit Authority.
Construction crews finished the extension on budget and in time for its use during the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. The UTA hub sits at the edge of Rice Eccles Stadium, which will host the Opening and Closing Ceremonies.
The university line travels from the stadium down 400 South to the Delta Center, where it connects to the original North-South line.
Just two days before the opening of the new extension, U President Bernie Machen and Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson jointly unveiled new street signs on 400 South announcing its honorary name “University Boulevard.”
“Dubbing 400 South ‘University Boulevard’ will help visitors find us and leaves no doubt about our place in this community,” Machen said.
The university line provides a direct link between the campus and downtown, giving students a way to get to class without having to take up parking spots.
Machen heralded the extension as one of the solutions to the campus’ transportation woes.
“We expect more and more of not just students but the employees to use this line, and I think they will,” he said.
Before the opening of light rail, 86 percent of the cars coming to campus held only the driver, Machen said. He called mass transit “the only real solution” to the parking problem.
Anderson said the extension is just the beginning of a long list of future mass transit projects that include commuter rail and many more light rail extensions traveling to West Valley City, Draper and Salt Lake International Airport.
But before any of those get underway, the U has one more line it wants built.
Construction crews will extend the university line from the stadium to University Hospital, connecting lower campus to upper campus.
Administrators have worked with UTA and federal politicians to secure funding for a one mile extension that will go up South Campus Drive, turn north on Wasatch Drive before traveling up 100 South to the hospital.
“The fact is that we are next,” Machen said. “With any luck, construction will start in April.”