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SALT LAKE CITY -- At the Rio Grande train station, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development secretary and city officials gathered for a kick-off ceremony of the transportation construction that will connect west Salt Lake area to downtown.
The new transportation construction is in part, a result of the $5 million grant HUD awarded Salt Lake City, and the beginning of "Wasatch Choice for 2040," a planning committee to aid the development along the Wasatch Front.
By 2050, our population will double to five million. -Envision Utah
Robert Grow, chair of Envision Utah, mentioned that the award had an impact beyond the state.
"This grant had two effects. One, it funded efforts around the country that were ready, but it also caused hundreds, maybe thousands of other communities, for the first time, to think about how they would organize for a better future," he said. "So there's a lot of reasons to be thankful not only for what we're receiving, which we appreciate, but also for the impact it's having on regional efforts with stakeholders and grassroots efforts across America."
The effort has required partnerships with Envision Utah and Wasatch Choice 2040, in addition to HUD and the community.
"We learned that it does take more than just a positive vision to get things done," said Mayor Peter Corroon. "As was mentioned, we have a lot of partnerships, and that's how we get things done in Utah. We work together because we know it's important to our community, for our future."
HUD Secretary, Shawn Donovan talked about the local involvement, and the influence they have in decision-making.
"If you think about what HUD did and the federal government did in planning 30 years ago, the approach was urban renewal. We came in, and if you look around this community, we probably would've come in and knocked down every building and put up something that came out of a pattern book that would look exactly the same in Salt Lake City as it did in New York, as it did in Peoria, Illinois," he said. "[Now,] this is a ground-up process. It's about communities saying, 'what do we want our city, our region, our block to look like,' and the federal government coming in to support that, not to say what the vision ought to be."
The transportation project will add bus rapid transit, additional streetcar and train lines, as well as accommodate biking and walking to help accommodate the addition of the projected 1.4 million people to the Wasatch Front.
