The Rio Grande Plan is dead! Long live the Rio Grande Plan!
Is Utah’s ability to think big and undertake epic projects dying? Or maybe progress in Utah is hindered by a massive, profit-driven corporation that has little interest in Utah’s future?
This article originally appeared on Building Salt Lake and is reproduced with permission.
Salt Lake City’s West-East Connections Study (WE Connect) has reached a critical juncture. On the evening of June 22, a combined meeting of WE Connect’s Citizens Advisory Board, comprised of residents of Salt Lake City’s west side, and WE Connect’s Technical Advisory Committee, comprised of technical professionals, took a deep dive into the challenges of the Rio Grande Plan.
Following the presentation and discussion, paper slips and pens were handed out and the group was asked to submit their thoughts (anonymously if desired) on whether the WE Connect study should advance the Rio Grande Plan as a solution to help alleviate Salt Lake City’s west-east divide. An email sent June 24 to the members of the Citizens Advisory Board states, “The consensus was no, and that we should now focus our efforts on the corridor crossings and other projects as have been presented in previous CAB meetings.”
Does this mean that the Rio Grande Plan is dead? Or is Utah’s ability to think big and undertake epic projects dying? Or maybe progress in Utah is hindered by a massive, profit-driven corporation that has little interest in Utah’s future?
Background
The Rio Grande Plan is the citizen-created concept of moving the mainline freight and passenger rail tracks that pass through the west side of downtown Salt Lake City below grade into a “train box” and also returning passenger trains to Salt Lake City’s historic Rio Grande Depot. Moving the tracks below grade was inspired by Reno having done the same for its downtown during the 2000s, while returning passengers trains to the Rio Grande Depot was inspired by Denver’s renovation of its Union Station and the redevelopment of the surrounding neighborhood during the 2010s. Additionally, the reuse of Union Pacific’s empty rail yard next to Salt Lake Central Station would make around 75 acres available for redevelopment.
Initially put to paper by Christian Lenhart—a civil engineer—and Cameron Blakely—a landscape architect and urban designer, support for the Rio Grande Plan has grown far beyond the original duo. In February 2025, an economic impact analysis (PDF, 2 mb) performed at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University revealed that—over time—the increased property tax revenue would more than pay the costs involved in implementing the Rio Grande Plan.
Salt Lake City was intrigued enough by idea that it hired a consultant to explore the feasibility of the Rio Grande Plan. Completed in 2023, the screening analysis estimated the cost to implement the Rio Grande Plan at $4 to $6 billion. However, examining the assumptions of the screening analysis reveal when the evaluation started to go off the rails.
Devil’s in the assumptions
Two key assumptions resulted in an inflated cost estimate and increased the technical difficulty of implementing the Rio Grande Plan. The first is the grade, or steepness, of the tracks entering and exiting the train box. The screening analysis assumes a maximum grade of 1.0% even though the train box in Reno that inspired the concept has a steeper maximum grade of 1.5%. Longer, more gradual approaches increase costs.
The second key assumption is the number of parallel tracks throughout the project. The screening analysis assumes six parallel tracks through the entire north-south extent of the project—two tracks for FrontRunner, one track for Amtrak, two tracks for Union Pacific, and space for an additional future third Union Pacific track. Six tracks would be overkill. Four tracks—two for FrontRunner, two for Union Pacific, with an additional two tracks for Amtrak at the station platforms only—would be more than sufficient. Digging a wider train box to accommodate more tracks increases cost.
Salt Lake City and the consultant assumed a 1.0% maximum grade and six parallel tracks because these parameters were demanded by Union Pacific—despite a 1.5% maximum grade being a non-issue for Union Pacific trains passing through Reno and despite Union Pacific having no future plans for increasing train traffic that would ever justify needing two extra tracks throughout the entire length of the project.
Blocking the public interest
Union Pacific is one of the nation’s six Class 1 freight railroads, which are statutorily defined by the federal government as generating annual operating revenues in excess of ~$1.074 billion. Anyone familiar with Class 1 railroads are well aware that they have become massively profit-focused and routinely use the enormous profits they generate to preserve shareholder value through stock buybacks rather than reinvesting profits in improving rail infrastructure—let alone make investments in the communities through which their tracks pass.
When asked things by communities, Class 1 freight railroads are notorious for responding by asking for ridiculous amounts of cash in return. For example, the damage sustained to tracks during Hurricane Katrina truncated Amtrak service east of New Orleans in 2005. When communities along the Gulf Coast pushed for resumption of service, CSX—the Class 1 railroad who owns the tracks—demanded $2 billion in order to allow passenger service to resume, while the Federal Railroad Administration estimated the cost of necessary improvements at $118 million.
Following almost 20 years of delaying the restoration of service between New Orleans and Mobile, CSX eventually settled for $178 million. The result is Amtrak’s new Mardi Gras train that serves communities in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana and has broken all the ridership estimates despite the train taking more than twice as long as driving.
When it comes to Salt Lake City projects that have required the cooperation of Union Pacific, Union Pacific has caused significant delays and caused significant budget overruns. For example, the Archuleta Bridge (between North Temple and 200 South) was the final piece of infrastructure needed to complete the Jordan River Trail. Due to Union Pacific ignoring repeated requests by Salt Lake City for the railroad’s cooperation, members of the City Council were forced to fly to Union Pacific’s headquarters in Omaha and demand a meeting with executives in order to move the project forward. As an attempt at an apology, Union Pacific pledged $500,000 toward the bridge, which Salt Lake City has never received. When pressed by Transportation Division staff, Union Pacific responded that the $500,000 was never meant to be a cash contribution but rather what it cost Union Pacific for their coordination in the construction of the bridge over their tracks.
Construction of the 300 North pedestrian and bicycle bridge suffered delays and cost overruns due to Union Pacific withholding their cooperation. Even making relatively simple improvements at the 9-Line grade crossing was delayed by Union Pacific. During that period of delay, at least one person was struck and killed by a train at the grade crossing.
The modus operandi of Class 1 railroads is to make their cooperation so difficult and so expensive that communities just stop asking. To those who are familiar with Class 1 railroads, it is clear that the demands made by Union Pacific for the screening analysis of the Rio Grande Plan were intended to balloon the cost estimate to a point that we would just give up. Unfortunately, Salt Lake City and the consultants were either too ignorant of railroads or too afraid to stand up to Union Pacific to question their demand. Just like in high school algebra class, Union Pacific should have to show their work.
Be advised though that Union Pacific and the other Class 1 railroads did not become profit-driven monstrosities in a vacuum. Decades of deregulation by Congress evolved from railroads into Wall Street financial products. Despite rail being by far the most efficient way to transport freight on land, our nation’s railroads now move less freight each year than two decades ago. It would behoove our nation’s future to take the steps necessary to transition them back into utilities that actually serve the needs of our communities.
The Plan is still the answer, but only part of it
Circling back to the presentation given at the WE Connect meeting, the June 24 email further states, “The feedback from the CAB is that the RGP costs a lot, does not have clear organizational support from key stakeholders (e.g. including ownership and maintenance), and does not solve as many barriers as the full array of WE Connect crossing projects.” That statement makes three assertions that merit rebuttal.
First, while the Rio Grande Plan does have a huge cost up front, moving the tracks below grade would eliminate multiple grade crossing all at once. There would be no fighting over how to prioritize the order in which overpass and underpass projects would be completed. While overpasses and underpasses have relatively little impact on the driving experience, they often become wastelands that deincentivize walking and biking, which further complicates redevelopment opportunities.
Given Union Pacific’s track record cooperating with projects, there is no guarantee that the approach of doing grade separations one by one would ultimately be any cheaper than the Rio Grande Plan.
Last, the Rio Grande Plan was only intended to eliminate grade crossings, provide redevelopment opportunities, and provide current and future passengers arriving and departing Salt Lake City with a better train station than the current dystopia of Salt Lake Central Station.
Contrary to some parties’ expectations, The Rio Grande Plan was never intended to offset the legacy of redlining, incentivize businesses to locate on the west side, mitigate the effects of I-15 and I-80, house the homeless, heal the addicted, or answer whether the west side needs its own high school.
Unfortunately, decades of past city council members have been content allowing west side residents to settle for less—even though, on a per acre basis, the property taxes paid by west side residents is on par with the rest of the city. Ultimately, a civil engineer and a landscape architect can’t be expected to solve all of the aspects of the west-east divide on their own.
The middle of the three assertions is the ultimate reason as to why we can’t have nice things. While engineering challenges can be overcome by engineering solutions, overcoming policy challenges require aligning the wills of multiple stakeholders.
No leadership, no progress
The biggest challenge is who is going to champion the Rio Grande Plan, build it, and ultimately own and maintain it. For the many reasons given in preceding paragraphs, it should be abundantly clear that is not something Union Pacific cares to lead.
While in the past the Utah Transit Authority was able to build out the TRAX and FrontRunner system that we enjoy today, constructing that system put UTA billions of dollars in debt. Almost a fifth UTA’s annual budget is debt service. Realizing that UTA cannot reasonably take on more debt, the Utah Legislature has shifted the oversight of large transit projects to UDOT in order to change how projects are financed.
However, under this new framework, the Utah Department of Transportation has yet to successfully start the construction of any large transit projects. Currently in the queue to be completed before the 2034 Olympics are the FrontRunner 2x and TRAX Techlink projects. After oversight was transferred from UTA to UDOT, the FrontRunner 2x project was delayed by at least five years, because UDOT insisted on starting the planning process from scratch rather than picking up where UTA left off. On top of that, UDOT has already fumbled at least one attempt at obtaining federal funding for FrontRunner 2x. So, it remains to be seen whether UDOT can truly transition from a highway agency to a multimodal transportation agency.
The lack of a champion exposes that Utah lacks the institutional capacity to undertake projects like the Rio Grande Plan. For example, a prior Building Salt Lake article attempted to shed light on Utah’s failure to pursue federal rail funding that was available in the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law: “Billions in rail funding was available. Utah grabbed almost none of it.”
The leader we need
So, what would need to change in order for Utah to have the institutional capacity to implement the Rio Grande Plan? Contrary to Utah’s approach of allowing Union Pacific to just do whatever is in the best interest of its shareholders, other states have followed other approaches when dealing with Class 1 railroads and even have alternative approaches to ownership of rail infrastructure. The Reconnecting Communities Institute in consultation with Smart Growth America has completed a short report with suggestions for Utah (PDF, 1 mb).
A great first step would be for the Utah Legislature to create “Utah Railroad Commission” or a “Utah Department of Railroads” so that Utah would actually have a state agency focused on rail infrastructure and state employees that are aware of what other states are working on and what opportunities Utah should be taking advantage of. Such an agency would be a huge step towards having a champion for the Rio Grande Plan.
One rare opportunity that Utah could take advantage of is the proposed merger of Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern, which would take the number of the nation’s Class 1 railroads from six to five. Railroad mergers of this magnitude must be approved by the Surface Transportation Board, and the terms of the merger can contain provisions which are enforceable by the federal government for a period of seven years. In exchange for the state’s support of the merger, Utah could make asks of Union Pacific that would be baked into the agreement.
With the merger of Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern—which took the number of the nation’s Class 1 railroads from seven to six—the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois were able to negotiate a provision with Canadian Pacific that led to fast-tracking the proposal to add an additional passenger train running between Chicago and St. Paul via Milwaukee. Like the Mardi Gras, Amtrak’s new Borealis has also shattered ridership projections despite the full route taking almost eight hours.
Ultimately, Salt Lake City and Utah need to choose whether or not we’re going to let opportunities pass us by. In the late 1990s, the merger of Union Pacific and Southern Pacific/Rio Grande resulted in the rail yard just to the west of the historic Union Pacific depot becoming unnecessary. That rail yard is now The Gateway.
There were those who advocated that the redevelopment of the rail yard should include a train station. At the time though, TRAX was just a twinkle in our eyes and FrontRunner wasn’t even on the table. But take a moment and imagine what The Gateway could have been if a train station had been integrated into it. Then take a trip to Denver and explore its Union Station and the surrounding neighborhood.
Finally, for anyone interested in going down the rabbit hole of American railroad policy, the Reconnecting America Podcast from Solutionary Rail is an excellent deep dive.
Mike Christensen, MCMP, CNU-A, AICP, is the founder and executive director of the Utah Rail Passengers Association, a former member of Salt Lake City’s Planning Commission, a current member of WE Connect’s Technical Advisory Committee, and has lived on Salt Lake City’s west side for over 20 years.