A plan to bury train tracks in downtown SLC is gaining steam after nabbing a key endorsement

The Rio Grande Plan may have officially left the station. Destination: restored train service to the historic Rio Grande Depot and buried railroad tracks underneath 500 West from 1300 South to roughly 50 North.

After a presentation on the proposal, the Salt Lake County Council voted 5-2, with two members absent, to offer preliminary support for the plan and encourage future transportation studies to consider it.

The vote marked the first time a local government has formally endorsed the proposal.

“I can see this solving so many issues right now of what we’re dealing with, with the railroads currently coming through this area,” said council Chair Laurie Stringham, who holds a countywide seat. “So, that’s pretty exciting.”

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A group of local engineers dreamed up the Rio Grande Plan and have been dogged in getting the word out about it at public events. The grassroots proposal aims to reduce dangerous street-level road and rail intersections, give Utah’s capital a world-class train station once again and heal the east-west divide at its original source: the railroad tracks.

The group estimates that the price tag would be somewhere between $3-5 billion — an amount local governments don’t just have lying around. Organizers say federal dollars are necessary and available, not least through two major infrastructure bills passed during the Biden administration, but local and state governments must advocate for the project with one voice.

“It would take a united voice,” Frederick Jenny, a member of the group, said during his presentation to the council. “It would take the county, the city, the state all saying to, say, a senator or even the secretary of transportation, ‘Hey, we like this project, we want this project, we can find some funding, we have incremental funding, help us get the rest of it.’”

Not everyone was convinced by Jenny’s presentation, though. Two west-side council members, District 2′s Dave Alvord and District 5′s Sheldon Stewart, said they weren’t ready to vote in favor of the plan. Alvord’s district covers the far western edge of the county, while Stewart represents the Salt Lake Valley’s southwest corner.

“I’m also a nay,” Alvord said during the vote, “mostly for the sticker shock of the price tag.”

Jenny called the County Council’s vote “a good first step” in getting all of the relevant parties to the table and building consensus support for the plan.

In March, Gov. Spencer Cox said he was discussing with Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall the plan and other large infrastructure projects in Utah’s capital to target for completion in time for the 2034 Olympics. The city itself produced an analysis of the plan last year with support from the federal Department of Transportation.

The plan’s supporters are hosting a meeting about the proposal Sept. 12 at the Sorenson Unity Center at 1383 S. 900 West. Jenny also told council members that he would be presenting the plan to the Utah Legislature’s Interim Transportation Committee on Sept. 18 in hopes of keeping the project chugging along.

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