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SALT LAKE CITY -- This coming weekend, a busy bridge in downtown Salt Lake City will be closed. It's all part of the airport TRAX line construction that began about a month ago.
The North Temple viaduct that crosses over 400 West connects downtown Salt Lake City to the Rose Park and Glendale areas. It's also a quick way to get to the airport, but starting Sunday the bridge will be closed for a year and a half.
"We've been looking forward to UTA to build this project for the past 10 years," says Utah Transit Authority project manager Matt Sibul.
The project UTA is building, and Sibul is managing, is the airport TRAX line -- which means the North Temple bridge has to come down.
"Probably out of all the lines we're building, we get the most comments and questions about the airport line," Sibul says.
The airport TRAX line will connect Salt Lake International Airport to Arena station in Salt Lake City, with some stops along the way.
"I think it's great. It'll be nice," says Fred Becker, who often parks at the airport.
Becker thinks having public transportation in and out of the airport will make traveling a lot easier, just like in other major cities.
"I use the light rail system in Seattle quite often. It's very convenient and very cheap. It's good," Becker says.
Others we met at the Salt Lake airport economy lot, though, say they'll still drive instead of take TRAX.
"I don't know. It just seems like more of a hassle to do it that way," says Susie Kushlan, who also parks at the airport.
"I live in Sandy," says commuter Joseph Clark, "and it's just as easy to come into the airport directly from Sandy."
UTA says early projections for the airport TRAX line show about 8,000 people taking it every day. But again, while it's being built, the North Temple viaduct between 300 West and 600 West will be closed starting Sunday, April 18.
UTA says this is one of their most exciting projects ever.
"It kind of raises our level, as a city, to have direct access to the airport with good, reliable public transportation," says UTA spokesman Gerry Carpenter.
The bridge will be torn apart starting Tuesday, and one neat thing about the process: all the concrete, asphalt and metal from the bridge will be recycled for future projects. The best detours are 400 South and 600 North, because bridges over the railroads are on both of those streets.
UTA says the new airport TRAX line should be completed in early 2013, but the bridge will be ready for car traffic again in the fall of 2011.
E-mail: acabrero@ksl.com
