UTA’s Front Runner will eventually make it to Box Elder County, but it may take awhile

Courtesy rideuta.com

BRIGHAM CITY – Planning ahead for growth by necessity involves transportation planning. On KVNU’s For the People program on Tuesday, director of capital projects at the Utah Transit Authority (UTA) Manjeet Ranu helped us to understand a little of what the future holds for northern Utah when it comes to trains, such as Front Runner and public transit in general.

“Population in the UTA service area is projected to double by 2065 as this area has become increasingly attractive for those outside the region, just like me, moving here for the quality of life. And a lot of what we do is planning ahead to try and assure that we can accommodate that growth in our transportation system and transit provides choice for those to have multiple options,” Ranu said.

As the population continues north of Salt Lake and north of Ogden, Ranu said that public transit will become more important in people’s lives

“And so the more services that we provide, and as we grow the system, and are entrusted with the funds by the taxpayers of the counties that we serve, the more that we can extend that system.

“In fact, we are in the process of laying the foundation for potentially extending Front Runner further north with what we call right-of-way, or property acquisitions, so that we can preserve land for a corridor for potentially extending Front Runner to the north.”

Ranu said during the recent legislative session, a bill was passed – subject to the governor’s signature – that would provide significant additional funding to help facilitate double-tracking of the Front Runner system that would allow them to accommodate more trains.

AUDIO: Manjeet Ranu of UTA talks to KVNU’s Jason Williams on For the People on 3/16/2021

Free News Delivery by Email

Would you like to have the day's news stories delivered right to your inbox every evening? Enter your email below to start!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

For security, use of Google's reCAPTCHA service is required which is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

I agree to these terms.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.