SANDY — The Utah Transit Authority broke ground Monday on a new TRAX station that will be positioned to provide access to two major destinations — the South Towne Exposition Center and Jordan Commons.
The station, at 9400 South and 150 East, will also provide access to the Real Salt Lake stadium, proposed for construction on the northwest corner of 9400 South and State Street.
"There is a huge demand for TRAX in Sandy," said UTA General Manager John Inglish. "This station is late. This station was envisioned years ago as we began to get an idea of the development in this area."
At present, UTA generates about 93,000 riders each month from its existing Sandy TRAX stations at 9000 South and 10000 South — about 7.6 percent of its overall ridership. Inglish estimates 3,000 new riders will be generated through construction of the 9400 South station.
"It's a destination station," he said.
Unlike other TRAX stations in the valley, the 9400 South station will not have a park-and-ride lot. Instead, a drop-off area will be built east of the train tracks. Cost of overall construction: $2 million. About $1.7 million was obtained through a federal appropriation.
Rep. Jim Matheson, R-Utah, helped obtain the federal funding for the station.
"This is another one of those great days," he said. "This is important to the future of the valley; it's important to this portion of the valley."
Sandy Mayor Tom Dolan said: "Today is the culmination of a series of coalition-building that has lasted several years . . . This was one of the most important factors in the last congressional session for Sandy city."
Construction on the new station is expected to begin in early December and will end sometime next spring. The construction should not affect TRAX scheduling, said UTA spokesman Justin Jones. When complete, about one minute will be added to the commute time from Sandy to Salt Lake.
"We don't anticipate any delays," said Jones.
E-mail: nwarburton@desnews.com