Utah won't pursue autonomous transit, UTA says. Here's the plan instead
by Don Brinkerhoff ksl · KSL.comKEY TAKEAWAYS
- Utah Transit Authority has no plans for autonomous transit, citing feasibility issues.
- Gavin Gustafson highlights challenges like elevated tracks, underground options and funding limits.
SALT LAKE CITY — A handful of major cities across the country have implemented or are planning to implement public transport options that do not include a driver at the controls.
The Utah Transit Authority weighed in on whether Utah will be joining that list with a resounding "no," for trains, buses and cars.
Senior public information officer Gavin Gustafson said Utah has no plan for something like that in Utah — it's just not feasible.
"The Utah Transit Authority has no plans in (our) long-range transit plan to implement driverless or automated vehicle service," Gustafson said, adding that for trains, the systems other cities are implementing are either "elevated tracks like a monorail or underground tracks like subway."
"Neither of which UTA has, nor plans to do (in the future)," Gustafson said.
For one, Gustafson said, an autonomous driving train above ground would need to avoid interactions with traffic — a crucial must-have for the computer-controlled element.
As for an underground option, Gustafson says it's a landscape hurdle.
"Underground with the fault lines that we have here and the relatively high water table would be unlikely, I think," he said.
Utah's options for an elevated track or a monorail are limited because funding would interrupt what UTA is already working on.
"Our focus is to maintain what we have so that we can continue to provide high-level safe service as it is," Gustafson said. "And then potentially expand service would be the next priority. Simply altering existing service doesn't expand service."
That expansion includes expanding the Frontrunner line and doubling the track, so two tracks can use the same line. Gustafson estimates this would cut peak-hour wait times in half.
For the rest of the planned expansion, Gustafson referenced the UTA Move 2055 plan that is currently open for public comment.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.