Salt Lake City Airport Advisory Board members voiced support Wednesday for a street-level extension of TRAX light-rail service to a new airport terminal — which would shave tens of millions from a long-proposed elevated-track option.
The board was told that refinements to the new proposal will give passengers an experience that is almost as good as the expensive elevated track and station, and would cost just $15 million instead of about $68 million.
“I was hellbent for leather that we use that original plan,” said board Chairman J.T. Martin, figuring it was essential to the new $3 billion airport expansion. He said he’s changed his mind now after seeing refinements.
“At the end of the day, I think it does provide an excellent level of service,” he said.
The street-level alternative would deliver passengers 150 feet from the entrance of the new terminal. A canopy would cover that short walk. Passengers would take an elevator or escalator to go up one level to ticket counters and security.
Airport engineering director Kevin Robins said that elevator/escalator ride — which sometimes is cumbersome with luggage — “is really the only difference” in experience between the more expensive option where an elevated track would deliver passengers into a parking garage at the same level as new ticket counters.
“We think this is a very comparable level of service,” Robins told the board, and many members voiced agreement. The board took no votes on the option.
Also, earlier discussion of the street-level option had indicated that TRAX service to the airport might be suspended for six to 18 months for construction after the new terminal opens.
However, Robins said engineers now believe sections of new track could be constructed in such a way that the rail line would open at the same time as the new terminal, and require suspension of service for no more than a handful of days — about the same time disruption as the more expensive elevated-track option.
Also, Robins said space is available inside the terminal near the TRAX station to create an area where passengers from arriving flights could buy train tickets and wait in comfort.
Interim Airport Director Russ Pack said Mayor Jackie Biskupski asked airport officials to try to come up with a cheaper, workable alternative because the Utah Transit Authority had trouble affording the more expensive option.
Board member Igor Best-Devereux said while the new cheaper option may not be quite as good as the elevated-track option, “Not perfect is better than nothing at all.”
The UTA Board is scheduled to discuss the airport TRAX extension next Wednesday, and possibly approve proceeding with the new option.
Pack noted that engineers earlier proposed the elevated track believing that a street-level extension would interfere with the ability of large wide-body airplanes to taxi into new gates nearby. But engineers found ways to preserve that ability, although it would require some tricky maneuvering by large airplanes into some gates, he said.
The problem was largely resolved by Delta Airlines deciding to take those gates with plans to use them mostly for smaller jets that more easily may maneuver into them, Pack said.