2005: The Introduction of a Light Rail Station in Downtown Salt Lake City

September 19, 2005

In downtown Salt Lake City, a newly completed light rail station in the median of 200 West between 800 South and 900 South made its official debut. The 900 South Station serves all three lines — Blue, Red, and Green — of TRAX, a regional light rail system operated by the Utah Transit Authority (UTA). This station became the first one on any of the TRAX system lines that was built between two stations already in existence.

The 900 South Station was opened just a little less than five months after the groundbreaking ceremony for construction on it had taken place. On the day that this station first went into service, several of the local residents boarding trains there emphasized the advantage of having the new facility in their neighborhood and the now-reduced time for them to travel from their homes to access the system on a regular basis.

One of these individuals was Long Trinh, a high school sophomore living right around the corner from the 900 South Station. In an interview with the Salt Lake Tribune, he noted what he would do with the extra time resulting from a shorter-than-before walk to and from a light rail station. “A lot of homework,” Trinh said.

The key features of the 900 South Station include a total of three 12-foot (3.7-meter)-high sculptures depicting images of 15 neighborhood children altogether. These sculptures, which represent the diversity of people residing in that section of Salt Lake City, were created by artists Dan Cummings, Dinah Ihle, and Kerry Transtrum as part of UTA’s Art in Transit program.

Photo Credit: An Errant Knight (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en)

For more information on the 900 South Station of the Utah Transit Authority’s TRAX system, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/900_South_station