Riding Toward a New Trajectory

Alternatives exist. Even if they don't get the same funding dollars, mass transit continues to change the transportation conversation.

In Utah mass transit circles, UTA receives a bulk of the attention and state dollars. Their buses, light rail cars, trains, and more move thousands of people each day across the Wasatch Front. UTA ridership exceeded 40 million in 2024, and the agency has recovered to 91.5% of its pre-pandemic ridership—significantly above the national average of 79%, according to the American Public Transportation Association.

UTA's 2025 budget is divided between operations ($650 million) and capital projects ($330 million). Nearly 80% of operations are funded from sales tax, while the capital budget's most significant funding comes from grants (39% of that budget).

Gavin Gustafson, UTA's Sr. Public Information Officer, said that investing in transit is a win for everyone.

"Even if there are only five people on the bus, that's five cars not on the road," he said. "And then [UTA is] taking hundreds of cars off the road with FrontRunner."

FrontRunner, the commuter rail system, has helped connect cities across the Wasatch Front since opening in 2008. Today, the rail system has a daily average of 14,000 riders.

Think of the traffic it has saved! 

Those who plan our transportation networks certainly have. Gustafson said UTA Moves 2050 Vision Network (UTA Moves) is UTA's long-term plan that looks to bring additional mass transit choices to Utah over the next 25 years. UTA Moves includes plans for new rail stations to Bluffdale, Springville, and Brigham City, new bus routes in West Valley and Magna, and many potential routes and services in an ambitious plan to take us "there". 

How ambitious? Implementing it all would require $6.7 billion in transit infrastructure and $225 million annually (in 2023 dollars) to operate it. UTA Moves documents are clear that these plans are fiscally constrained, stating, "Investments in the 2050 UTA Moves Vision Network must be prioritized to determine which best meet regional mobility needs."

Much like the Unified Plan, "It's a matter of funding," Gustafson said about UTA's long-range plans to further connect riders to destinations. "We would love to do everything, but we need a stronger ridership and more funding to accomplish some of those ambitious goals."

The message is clear to help move Utah in a new direction. It's in big letters on the UTA Jordan River Trail Service Center: Ride The Train. 

Or take the bus, streetcar, On Demand, or vanpool.

FrontRunner Double Tracking;  

New TRAX Line Incoming

Gustafson and Josh Van Jura, UDOT Director of Trails and Transit, are excited about a future transit development: double-tracking FrontRunner. Since just 26% of the 82-mile train line is double-tracked, the UDOT-led project, known as Frontrunner 2x, will add double tracking in 11 strategic locations to take the amount of double-tracked line to 58%. Doing so will decrease the wait times for the next train from 30 minutes to 15 minutes during peak hours. And by 2050, FrontRunner riders can wave to drivers as the train zooms past them on I-15, as the commuter rail service is expected to outperform I-15 travel times—something it already does on occasion.

The project is capital-intensive, Van Jura noted. Currently, Utah has allocated $845 million to Frontrunner 2x and has applied for the federal Capital Investment Grant as a "Core Capacity" project. Van Jura said that this grant will subsidize $2.1 billion of the project.

Much like ongoing efforts with Frontrunner 2x, Utah must continue to expand on its mass transit success to help clean the air, reduce the amount of Utah's notorious drivers on the road, and build additional transit infrastructure to "Keep Utah Moving".

As FrontRunner double-tracking and new stations come to fruition, UTA's light rail system has additional plans in the works with another UDOT-led project: TRAX Orange Line.

Gustafson and Van Jura said that the Orange Line has passed through a few of the initial development phases. Van Jura said that $6 million was recently allocated to the project's National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review process. Once NEPA proposals are reviewed in full by UDOT, the department will issue a final decision on the route, which aims to take riders directly from the Salt Lake City Airport (another form of mass transit!) to the University of Utah's Research Park. 

The Orange Line will require a realignment of the TRAX Red Line and will then modify TRAX Blue and Green Line operations. Passengers and officials hope that TRAX service is fully operational, new routes and all, before the 2034 Winter Olympics.

The future of light rail is exciting, especially for what it means for ongoing development in Salt Lake County and beyond.

Bus Rapid Transit Lines Move Along

This placemaking component is central to Utah's embrace of bus rapid transit (BRT). The concept is straightforward: buses run on a route, usually with dedicated roadways, where they receive priority at intersections where they may interact with other traffic.

Ted Knowlton, Wasatch Front Regional Council Chief Planner & Deputy Director, said, "BRT offers the placemaking aspect of rail with the stations. It's telling the community, 'We're stopping here and we're investing here.'"

According to Knowlton, BRT is a critical piece of how transit can grow in Utah. "BRT projects can be delivered with much lower costs than rail, can get you 'there' as fast as rail, and have great flexibility," he said. "For example, BRT can deviate from its route to deal with things like a traffic accident or a parade."

Investments like these are in operation, with more on the way. Of the two BRT lines currently up and running, the Utah Valley Express (UVX) has buses running every six minutes at its most frequent intervals, taking over 5,000 daily riders across the metro area between Provo Central Station and Orem Central Station. UVX has been UTA's most popular bus route since it began service in 2018.

The second BRT line in operation is the Ogden Express Line (OGX), which began running in 2023. OGX takes over 2,600 daily riders across Ogden in 10-minute intervals. The five-mile route starts at Ogden Central Station before heading east on 23rd Street and 25th Street, and then south on Harrison Boulevard and onto Weber State's campus and on to a final destination at McKay-Dee Hospital. In its first year of service, OGX moved nearly one million riders.

BRT has benifitted the community in other ways, too. Metropolitan planning organization MAG Utah found that, since opening in 2018, UVX and surrounding infrastructure along the route may have played a key part in a 40% reduction in annual car crashes. The University of Utah found that UVX may help to take a conservative average of 1,500 car trips off the road every day.

Building and growing transportation capacity via bus? Maybe induced demand isn’t all bad.

Additional BRT Lines Move Forward

Two more BRT lines are in design or construction. The first, the Midvalley Express (MVX), will feature an all-electric bus fleet to transport future riders between Murray Central Station intermodal hub, Taylorsville and the expanding SLCC Redwood campus, down 4700 South—with portions of this part of the route on dedicated bus lanes—and on to the intermodal hub at West Valley Central Station. Riders will be able to board the dedicated bus stops on the seven-mile route in spring 2026, almost a year ahead of schedule.

Construction of BRT infrastructure is fairly straightforward, according to Maverick Gibbons, Project Manager for transit contractor Stacy Witbeck on both projects in the works. "At their core, these are road projects with enhanced bus stops.”

While BRT may be simple to build, its indirect effects are massive.

Returning to construction, the key to success on a straightforward scope, Gibbons explained, starts with considerable time in preconstruction to identify utilities and plan the various systems required to enhance these bus stops.

Case in point is the second BRT line progressing toward construction: SR-224 BRT for High Valley Transit in the Wasatch Back. The project is the recipient of $25 million in federal DOT funding as part of the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. It aims to transport 5,000 riders per day between the Kimball Junction Transit Center and Old Town Park City, and multiple new and existing stops in between, utilizing dedicated BRT lanes between Kimball Junction and Kearns Boulevard in Park City.

Design work began in January 2025, and Gibbons said the team will soon pre-stage the project by installing five miles of fiber-optic cables on the BRT route through Park City. This winter, Gibbons and the Stacy Witbeck team will later work with trade partners to remove landscaped islands near the Canyons Resort.

Gibbons said that ongoing work on the MVX line has encountered a few speed bumps as its path moves from West Valley City to Taylorsville to Murray. 

"Cities all have different ways they want to see things done," he said, before stating that following UDOT specifications or even a standardized approach could help move projects like these along in a more timely manner without having to work through three cities' public works expectations. "We miss the consistency," he said.

The Choice is Ours

Utahns value freedom. While cars are a great symbol of freedom, investing in additional transportation options is how leaders can continue to give residents and visitors the freedom to move however they please.

Plans like the Unified Plan, UTA Vision, and others hold promise, but it remains to be seen whether state transportation leaders will continue to drive in circles of car dependency for 40 years, or embrace a change in transportation funding and prioritization to emphasize mass transit—and take Utah to the proverbial promised land.