The Draper TRAX extension will begin operating this Sunday. Utah Transit Authority officials today joined Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, Utah Governor Gary Herbert and other state and local officials today in Draper to celebrate.
Red and Blue smoke billowed above the train at the new Draper Town Center TRAX Station, signaling the completion of the Utah Transit Authority’s FrontLines 2015 rail program.
The new extension runs from what is currently the end of the Blue Line at 100th South to 124th south in draper. The extension was completed two years ahead of schedule and more than $300 million under budget. Governor Gary Herbert says that’s just how things are done in Utah.
“We do things on time," Herbert says. "We do them under budget. We live within our means. We don’t borrow unnecessarily and consequently we don’t have an overburden put upon the taxpayers and the people of Utah.”
In 2006 Utah voters approved a series of bonds and a sales tax increase to kick start the program.
The U-S Department of Transportation has contributed more than $500 million for the entire transit system including $116 million for the latest extension. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx says that doesn’t happen by accident.
“It happens because there is a community that has a vision and there are folks at every level who get behind it," Foxx says.
Foxx says Utah’s transit system is an example to the rest of the country of what transit agencies can do to transform communities.
“It means better access to jobs for hardworking families, it means less time stuck in traffic," Foxx says. "It means that the air is cleaner and clearer. And it means that this region,which is already one of the fastest growing regions in the country will be better prepared to handle more people as they make the Salt Lake City region there home.
UTA projects the 3.8 mile-long extension will carry more than 2,000 passengers per day.
