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Salt Lake City

E 400 S

University line

The Salt Lake City University Line opened in 2002, in time for the Winter Olympic Games. Although there is practically no on-street parking along the line, there are still lessons to be learned.  E 400 S, the street University Line runs down, has 3 lanes of traffic in each direction instead of two lanes and on-street parking, so there is ample space for on-street parking if necessary. In additon, E 400 S has a similar width to University Avenue in St. Paul, approx. 123ft vs 120ft. This raises the question of how 3 lanes of traffic was accomodated in a street section similar to University Avenue.  Strategies used to do this were no large, elongated landscaped medians along the light rail tracks. Also, the light rail tracks serpentine to create space for turn lanes.  Finally, the Salt Lake Line saves space by having center, double loading station platforms on one side of an intersection, instead of both.

Click here for an annotated tour of the Salt Lake City Line

Click here to walk along the Salt Lake City line in three separate views

Strategies

1) Lacks elongated landscape medians adjacent to light rail tracks in order to save right-of-way for other uses.

2) The light rail tracks serpentine to accomodate turn lanes.

3) The design of the stations saves right-of-way by having a single center, double loading platform on only one side of an intersection.

Cross Section Drawing