Ogden, UT — Streetcars Preferred

Rail Transit Online, June 2005

An electric streetcar line is the preferred transit mode to connect the downtown Intermodal Transit Center with Weber State University, according to a $100,000 study released on June 21.  The analysis, conducted for the Utah Transit Authority, looked at five modes including streetcars, light rail, a cable-hauled overhead gondola and two levels of enhanced bus service.  A scoring system gave streetcars 377 points, the cableway 298 points and significantly improved buses 202.  Light rail was not even ranked because of its cost.  Streetcars would have a price tag of around $100 million and could follow either of two corridors: 23rd Street, Washington Boulevard, 26th Street and Harrison Boulevard, which is preferred; or just 23rd Street and Harrison Boulevard.  The cableway was rejected, in part, because it might prove difficult to attract federal funding since there is nothing on which to base past performance.  “It would be a substantial effort to change this equation to get it (a cableway) accepted by the FTA,” Mick Crandall, deputy chief of planning and programming for UTA, told the Standard-Examiner.  However, local business leaders support the cableway, which they suggest  extending to local ski resorts, possibly as a public-private partnership.  The vice president of a ski outfitting company headquartered in Ogden said construction of the cableway could turn the city into another Aspen.  The streetcar proposal, which would cost $10 annually to operate, might be difficult to finance at the local level.  “For us to come up with half of ($100 million) is a real struggle,” Ogden Mayor Matthew Godfrey told the Standard-Examiner.