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Utah Transit Authority (UTA)
This page was last updated on September 15, 2011.
(This is a work in progress; research continues.)
Information about Utah Transit Authority's TRAX Light Rail, and FrontRunner Commuter Rail Project.
Additional Information
- UTA Wikipedia article
- Will Bagley's article — "A Century Ago, Salt Lake Was Transit Model" from Salt Lake Tribune.
- Streetcars in Utah — An index page for streetcar information throughout Utah, including Salt Lake City and Ogden.
- Photos — Lew Jessop's UtahTransit site.
UTA TRAX — Information about UTA's light rail system in Salt Lake City.
UTA FrontRunner — Information about UTA's Wasatch Front commuter rail system, known as FrontRunner.
UTA Sugar House Streetcar — Information about the planned streetcar service to the Sugar House district in Salt Lake City.
UTA Buses — Information about the history of UTA's transit bus system, and how the old Utah Light & Traction electrified trolley buses, and later Salt Lake City Lines gasoline and diesel buses, evolved into today's Utah Transit Authority public transit system for northern Utah.
Commuter Rail and Light Rail, What's The Difference?
UTA's Frontrunner falls under Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) jurisdiction, and TRAX falls under Federal Tranit Administration (FTA) jurisdiction. There are no apparent plans to connect TRAX with Frontrunner, including (as some have mentioned) sharing the Warm Springs maintenance facility.
A good definition about the differences between commuter rail (UTA's Frontrunner) and light rail (UTA's TRAX) comes from Railway Age:
Jurisdiction covering urban transit properties, such as "light rail", subways and elevated systems, traditionally has fallen to the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), while Federal Railroad Adminstration (FRA) took care of Class I freight railroads, Amtrak, and "commuter rail" systems. Where an "urban" system physically connects with another railroad — freight or passenger — however, FRA assumed oversight. The bistate New York/New Jersey Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) rapid transit system, an urban circulator in New York City, falls into this category, in part because its physical plant connects with Amtrak's Northeast Corridor in New Jersey.
FRA's oversight, approved by Congress, expanded significantly under a joint statement issued by FRA and FTA on July 10, 2000. FRA's "Policy on Jurisdiction Over Passenger Operations" states in part: "Under Federal railroad safety laws, FRA has jurisdiction over all railroads except rapid transit operations in an urban area that are not connected to the general railroad system of transportation. . . . Within the limits imposed by this authority, FRA exercises jurisdiction over all railroad passenger operations, regardless of equipment used, unless FRA has specifically stated an exception to its exercise of jurisdiction for a particular type of operation." (Railway Age, Volume 209, Number 7, July 2008, page 17)
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