The Salt Lake City Council signaled Wednesday that it might spend an extra $50 million for a deluxe TRAX station and rail at the airport — after Utah Transit Authority leaders said they will pay only for a much cheaper basic version.
City Council Chairman Stan Penfold said he and some council colleagues believe that the Cadillac version may be worth the money. It would use elevated tracks to arrive at the airport’s new gateway building — dropping passengers a few steps from ticket counters and baggage drop-off.
“The city council wants to talk about it,” he said. “There are members of the council who want to consider that option and have further discussion about it. We want to look at some financing options.”
He added, “I’m hearing there are some options that wouldn’t impact our resident taxpayers,” such as perhaps raising taxes that tourists pay for such things as rental cars, airport parking and hotel rooms.
Penfold said he personally “totally supports” the more expensive option in conjunction with the $3 billion airport reconstruction now underway.
“That’s what we’ve been talking about for a decade. I think it’s nicer for passengers,” he said. “It says we have a commitment to transit, and the most convenient, easy access to downtown and other points.”
“I think we have an opportunity that’s pretty unique in the country, to say we are going to integrate it [TRAX light rail] right into our airport, which is a world-class kind of option,” Penfold said. “I think that’s important.”
After UTA had expressed sticker shock at the $68 million price tag for the elevated-track option, Mayor Jackie Biskupski recently asked airport officials to see if they could come up with a more affordable, workable street-level option.
They did — one that would deliver passengers 150 feet from the entrance of the new terminal. A canopy would cover the short walk. Passengers would take an elevator or escalator to go up one level to ticket counters and security.
Airport engineering director Kevin Robbins recently told the Airport Advisory Board that the elevator/escalator ride “is really the only difference” in experience between the options for passengers.
While the airport board didn’t vote, members expressed support for the more basic TRAX plan.
Such a street-level option had been discarded earlier because engineers thought it would interfere with the ability of larger jets to taxi to new gates nearby. But engineers found a way it could work, although it requires some maneuvering by airplanes.
Delta Air Lines recently further mitigated the problem by deciding to take those gates and use them for smaller aircraft in its fleet.
UTA President and CEO Jerry Benson told his board on Wednesday that spending $15 million to $20 million on a basic station would fulfill the transit agency’s earlier promises to the city, and that the expense will be built into upcoming UTA budgets.
“UTA builds a good basic product, and if a community wants to enhance that … if they want to finance or fund those enhancements or betterments, our approach is to say that is a positive thing … we’re all for it,” he said.
“The good news at this point in time is that we have a good, workable option at grade, and we have a pretty good idea of what our financial commitment will be,” Benson said.
Financing even the cheaper version, though, will be tough for UTA — and it plans to borrow the money rather than cut other services, Benson said.
“Taking a $15 million to $20 million hit in our operating expense in one, two or three years would be too big of a blow. So the smart thing for us to do is to add that to the bond we were planning to do in 2018 anyway, which is helping us fund some of our major capital state-of-good-repair projects,” he said.
Some members of the UTA Board voiced support for the basic option, although no formal vote was taken — and the board plans more detailed review in the future.
“I think this is way better than what the discussion was in the past with a lot higher price tag,” said board member Brent Taylor. Still he asked to see more data on whether the new station and rail would attract enough riders to be worth the price.
Benson said, “Over the long term, we would hope and expect that the rail system is able to carry much more of the load of both passengers and employees” at the airport. He said that is complicated now by schedules that start too late for early flights, and stop too early for some late flights — but UTA eventually hopes to expand service hours.