Updating their previous vision for a restored Rio Grande Depot, buried rail lines, and removed Interstate viaducts, the citizen authors of the Rio Grande Plan released this week new renderings that hint at how dramatically transformative the plan would be for west Downtown and the Granary.
Via Rio Grande, the volunteer group advocating for the plan, stated in a press release Monday that the plan will, “If constructed, substantially ease the burden of the socioeconomic east-west divide in Salt Lake City by the time of the 2034 Winter Olympics.”
Blocked crossings due to freight train traffic are a daily headache for Salt Lakers traveling west to east and east to west. With the removal of at-grade trains–proposed for FrontRunner, Amtrak, and Union Pacific–and dropping three unnecessary Interstate ramps, the only major physical barrier separating the two sides of the city would be I-15.
Along 500 West, an underground “train box” would lay 4.2 miles of track between South Temple and 1300 South in a tunnel 178 feet wide, reaching 38 feet below ground.
“Zero demolition of housing units would be required,” the plan claims, although the inconvenience to properties adjacent to 500 West, the location of the train box, would be significant during construction. That includes residences that are part of the Gateway mixed-use development.
The cost of the project was estimated at $3-5 billion last year by consultants hired by Salt Lake City. That estimate included dozens of properties — mostly existing rail parcels of Union Pacific — that would need to be acquired, as well as improvements like 13 new intersection caps, four new bridges, and updates to existing utility lines.
Previously stung by the report that tagged their project at 10 times its original estimated cost, Rio Grande Plan organizers have found new inspiration in the awarding of the 2034 Olympic Winter Games to Salt Lake City.
Sensing a significant window of opportunity, they produced an updated digital “booklet” for popular consumption that shows images of how our current experience of the corridor between 500 and 700 West, South Temple to 1300 South might be completely transformed.
Let’s take a look at some of the notable updates of the Rio Grande Plan (RGP).
Depot I barely recognize you–a shift in perspective
The RGP update, building on the Redevelopment Agency’s latest plans for Station Center the Rio Grande District, reveals attention-getting urban design potential not included in previous RDA visioning.
The plan’s new aerial images from the west/southwest show what land reclaimed from the rails can become.
The Union Pacific rail yard at 400 South and 600 West becomes developable land, and 400, 500, and 600 South regain their street frontage for the two blocks between 700 West and 500 West. Those would be huge wins for city-building, transforming anti-city land uses into over 100 acres of value- and transit-rich land just at the edge of Downtown.
Most inviting is perhaps a linear park taking over the main trunk of the north-south line which currently services UTA’s Salt Lake City “Central Station” at 650 West and 300 South. That track currently hauls UP freight, Amtrak, and UTA’s FrontRunner, and would be vacated thanks to the train box.
If owned by the city, it can be turned into a linear park, the plan’s images suggest.
That’s right: a rails-to-trails conversion lined with mixed-use development. It would travel just west of 600 West down the western edge of the Rio Grande District and the Granary–complementing City Hall’s plans for a 500 West branch of the Green Loop that extends to 900 South and the 9-Line.
The plan also includes several neighborhood parks, addressing the need for green space first recognized in the area’s first master plan in 1999.
An Olympics boost?
Of course an important early question for visionary projects is, How will you pay for it?
“Ultimately, the nature of the funding will depend on if this is a state-led project, of it is a city-led project backed up by the state,” said Christian Lenhart, one of the founders of the Via Rio Grande group.
Neither UDOT nor UTA have proposed transportation projects enhancing public goods like affordability or sustainability in the wake of the Olympic Winter Games returning to Utah. It looks like it might be up to citizens like Via Rio Grande to demand concrete benefits from the 2034 games.
The coming Olympics give the project a “higher likelihood of winning some still-unallocated money for the various infrastructure bills passed under the Biden administration,” Lenhart told us in an email.
But, he noted, some public authority has to step up. “Without a formal project, there can be no formal funding strategy.”
Current state of the organizing effort
Rio Grande Plan advocates have recently started a petition to support their effort.
In addition, the next Rio Grande Plan supporters’ event is on September 12 at 6 pm at the Sorenson Unity Center at 1383 South 900 West.
Editor’s note: The time for the next Via Rio Grande supporters’ event was incorrectly listed as 7 pm in a previous version.
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