A coalition of local business and community groups has banded together to push Congress to fund the downtown-to-university TRAX line.
"We want to send a message to our leaders that there is broad-based support for this," said Jess Agraz, executive director of the Utah Transportation Management Association. "This (west-east line) is really the next critical link."Agraz and others representing the University of Utah, Utah Hotel & Lodging Association, Trolley Square, Downtown Retail Merchants Association, Downtown Alliance and other organizations, collectively calling themselves the Coalition for University Light Rail Extension, held a press conference Monday to show unified support for the line.
In the aggregate, the coalition represents 25,000 students and 5,000 businesses with 75,000 employees.
Federal funding for the line -- costing about $118.5 million, though that figure may change somewhat -- is now being decided by congressional appropriations and authorization committees.
Downtown Alliance executive director Bob Farrington said that was the impetus behind the creation of the coalition. Historically, he said, the business community hasn't involved itself enough in these sorts of mass-transit projects.
"Everyone was a little complacent," he said. "This is important and it's good and let's not assume it's all going to take care of itself. It's really not fair to (the Utah Transit Authority) and the city that they carry the water entirely."
Salt Lake officials may need some urging as well. With construction bids far exceeding the estimated $105 million, the City Council last week tentatively, and somewhat reluctantly, approved changes to the project to bring the price down.
The coalition has sent a letter to Utah's congressional delegation as well as other influential senators and congressmen urging passage of an $84 million, full-funding grant agreement. UTA was informed last month that it has prequalified for the grant agreement, but Congress has to sign off on it before it actually happens.
Participants at the press conference touted the north-south line as a model of mass transit that should be expanded upon, with the downtown-to-university line as the first logical outgrowth.
The coalition has been plagued somewhat by bad timing. The press conference was originally scheduled for last Wednesday but was hastily canceled after a woman who was running across the north-south TRAX tracks was hit and killed that morning.
Ann Gambrino, executive director of the Utah Hotel & Lodging Association, said the timing of the rescheduled press conference was perfect given the large ridership of LDS Church members who used TRAX to reach general conference over the weekend.