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Comment by seanmcdirmid | Hacker News Reader

I'm pretty amazed someone would claim that Trax is only limited to a small area of downtown Salt Lake.

Indeed. +darrenkopp missed the Mid-Jordan line, the West Valley line (both currently operational), the airport line (opening in April) and the Draper line (also opening in 2013). These are mostly east-west lines. Also not included is the Sugar House street car line.

SLC mayor Ralph Becker says, "by the end of 2013, we will have witnessed the largest expansion of an urban rail system in the nation." [1]

"70 miles in 7 years" seems pretty ambitious to me. [2]

[1] - http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/55680450-78/salt-lake-beck...

[2] - http://www.rideuta.com/mc/?page=Projects-Frontlines2015

It is. The only cross line is up 4th South. I mentioned there's a fairly long straight line down through sandy, but stations are more sparse, and misses the majority of salt lake.

Aerial Map: https://www.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0...

True that the Wasatch valley isn't sufficiently dense enough for public transit to be very effective, but they sure are trying! If you live in SLC and commute to the U, you are good to go, and I hear the airport line will be open (finally) soon enough, but I haven't been back in 7+ years.

The valley really needs to build up some density to make transit really work, but its difficult with all that land available + a conservative Republican state government (along with the people who vote for that government).

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