Letter to the editor

Light rail can't solve growth problems

Rita Wechter Dec. 12, 2005 From the print edition
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  I was one of those first eager riders on the new light-rail system in Salt Lake City in December of 1999 (HCN, 11/14/05: Back on track). After years of rampant population growth in the Salt Lake Valley, I find that Salt Lake City today has more traffic and congestion, the air is way more polluted, and there is far less open space since that first Trax ride of six years ago. The only way to truly combat the negative effects of runaway growth is to … stop growing!

Call me a pessimist, but with tens of millions more people expected in the Intermountain West in the next 25 years, I fear that we can all look forward to massive increases in pollution, sprawl and congestion. And a million more miles of light rail isn’t going to fix it.

Rita Wechter
Price, Utah

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