USU report suggests the Rio Grande Plan would turbocharge Salt Lake County's economy. 

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• Benjamin Wood
• Restoring train service to the historic Rio Grande Depot would generate billions of dollars for Utah's economy, according to a USU analysis released on Wednesday, April 23, 2025.

LIBERTY WELLS—Burying Salt Lake City's heavy rail in a train box and restoring passenger service to the historic Rio Grande Depot is estimated to cost between 3 and 5 billion dollars.

But according to a new analysis by researchers at Utah State University's Huntsman School of Business, investing in the so-called "Rio Grande Plan" would immediately generate a profit for the state of Utah, adding $12 billion to the state's economy through year one of operations and boosting the state's annual GDP by more than $7 billion.

"This seems like a screaming deal to me," said Curtis Bishop, a graduate student with USU's Analytics Solutions Center who modeled the direct and indirect economic activity associated with the Rio Grande Plan. "But I’m not an expert."

The economic benefit of rerouting passenger and freight track through downtown would come in various forms, researchers noted, from the immediate demolition and construction jobs needed to build a train box through 500 West—the city's historic rail corridor—to the new homes, offices and retail spaces that would come to occupy what is currently 75 acres of under-productive railyard.

The analysis report suggests that 51,800 jobs would be created through the construction and redevelopment process as well as the first year of new rail operations. But after the project is fully completed, an additional 13,600 permanent jobs would exist in Salt Lake County's office, retail and hospitality industries, with additional economic activity around current and future transit hubs along the Wasatch Front.

"These new jobs and household spending will raise Salt Lake County's annual GDP by $29 million directly, $11 million indirectly, and $114 million through induced effects, amounting to a $155 million total increase in annual GDP," the report states. "The project's economic influence will extend beyond Salt Lake County, generating indirect and induced effects that benefit surrounding counties."

The USU findings were released Wednesday during a press conference at the Salt Lake County Government Center, which included the grassroots organizers of the citizen-initiated Rio Grande Plan and supportive members of elected government. Salt Lake County Council member Laurie Stringham said the county has largely exhausted the land available for outward growth, and that long-term plans around housing, transportation and land use are needed as Salt Lake grows "up."

"There isn’t anybody out there saying 'this is not a good idea.' All they’re saying is, ‘Wow, look at the price tag’," Stringham said. "If we have the political will, then we can get it done."

Rep. Ray Ward, R-Bountiful, said that his constituents in Davis County would stand to benefit from better connections to, through and around Salt Lake City. He noted that the state has recently invested significant amount of money into the development ideas of "billionaires"—alluding to plans for a downtown sports and entertainment district around the Delta Center, among others—and suggested that the ideas of grassroots citizen groups should be given the same credence.

"If you need to get to your job in downtown, this is going to make your life easier," Ward said. "This project connects to and leverages all of those [development plans] so people can get in and out from them easier."

USU's report is in line with the arguments of transit advocates and urbanists, who say that investments around the convenient movement of people tend to pay higher dividends than spending on car travel. While highways are often caught in a cycle of ever-deepening maintenance debt—exacerbated by declines in adjacent property value—efficient transit leads to a virtuous cycle in which human-scale improvement to the built environment lures private investment and ultimately results in higher tax receipts, which in turn can be re-invested in maintenance and operations.

Christian Lenhart, president of Via Rio Grande and a co-author of the original Rio Grande Plan, said that without taking action to address at-grade rail crossings, conflicts with trains are only going to worsen. Rail operators are running longer trains with fewer crew, blocking more intersections at a time and for longer periods of time. Meanwhile, Salt Lake City is growing up around the rails, with more residents and visitors attempting to cross between the east and west sides while the Utah Transit Authority works to double the frequency of the FrontRunner train before the 2034 Olympics.

Lenhart said that even at the time of its construction, the Rio Grande Depot was an inordinately large and elegant train hall, with the people who built it looking to make a statement.

"You cannot build something of that grandeur and that size and scale today. The only way to have that is to reuse the buildings that we already have," Lenhardt said. "We’re really lucky to have the Rio Grande Depot, so why not use it as a train station like it was originally intended?"

The Rio Grande Plan has been endorsed by the Salt Lake County Council and is generally supported—though not formally endorsed—by the Salt Lake City Council. But it has not been embraced by UTA or the Utah Department of Transportation, which have instead based their long-term planning around the existing Salt Lake Central Station on 600 West.

More significantly, Union Pacific has given no indication that it is even open to the idea of relocating its track or allowing redevelopment of its railyard.

But Rio Grande Plan proponents note that Union Pacific would also benefit from the removal of at-grade crossings, as collisions with pedestrians and drivers can impose significantly delays on rail operations and the mere existence of a crossing requires speed controls and other routing pinch points.

City Council member Alejandro Puy, who lives on and represents the west side, said that he has made multiple attempts to raise the issue of unsafe crossings with Union Pacific representatives. He said that when he is late to an appointment, it's most likely due to being blocked by a train. But he added that while he's lucky to be able to arrive late, many of his neighbors don't, and he frequently sees people dangerously crossing over, under and through stopped train cars to reach things like jobs, school and medical appointments.

"This is just going to be a dream unless we have more state leaders speaking about this and talking about the impacts of this," Puy said. "And we also need to have the owners of the land at the table."