SALT LAKE CITY — Tony Diaz has worked at Make Salt Lake in the downtown area for five years now — that is, if customers are able to show up.
“I hear it all the time: 'Oh, I was coming in because I wanted to tour the space, but I was late because the train stopped me.' 'I came to take a welding class, and I was 15 minutes late,'” he said.
Diaz has to add 15 minutes to his commute and recalled moments that got frustrating while waiting for the train.
“I was, of course, first in line for the train… someone behind me pulls out, I pull out, go around… turns out that there was a Mammoth game, and so I got stuck in Mammoth traffic,” Diaz said. "I was about 15-20 minutes late… and I had left 10 minutes early for a five-minute drive.”
Well, these horror stories will soon become a memory, because the Utah Inland Port Authority finally got the green light to move forward with a rail project that’s been years in the making.
“This helps to push all of those trains out to the west to a place that's much better suited, an industrial location,” said Ben Hart with the Authority. "They don't land in the neighborhood. There'll still be some limited rail traffic, but it won't be stopping for 20-25 minutes like it was previously.”
The goal is to relocate the Patriot Rail and Western Railway and make sure they no longer land in residential areas like Poplar Grove, and instead land in a new location by the Salt Lake City Airport.
Salt Lake City Council Member Alejandro Puy oversees this area and has been battling this issue for quite some time now.
“Missing concerts right on the other side, missing job interviews…. There has been an array of impacts to our community,” he said. "We should throw a parade for this, because this deserves a parade. This is a big win for the community.”
Hart said this has been about eight years in the making. They received $13 million from the Federal Rail Administration, and the Authority’s board added another $500,000 toward funding for the project.
“Maybe some of these rail yards have been here before some of these neighborhoods have been, but we are together right now, and we should try to work together and try to minimize their success and our lives,” Puy said.
Diaz said he’ll gladly take those extra 15 minutes back before his commute.
“If you've ever been there when it stopped, you know that feeling, and so knowing that you're going to do the full, complete stops a little bit outside of the neighborhoods, it’s music to my ears,” he said.
Construction and relocation of the project is expected to start at the end of this year.
