I had the pleasure of visiting Salt Lake City (SLC) two weekends ago, and took a few notes while roaming about the streets. I was only in the city for two days, but here are a few things that stood out to me.
Flying into SLC
Public Transportation
While traveling without a car can be a hindrance, it also opens up opportunities of exploring the public transportation a place has to offer. I was happy to find SLC’s public transportation affordable and easy to use. SLC has a light rail train system that runs through the city, primarily servicing University of Utah students and the main downtown. The train system is not very extensive, but has a fare-free zone in the downtown, and makes getting to/from the airport just a 15-20 minute ride (about the same as an Uber, but at a fraction of the cost). The trains were clean, and seemed to be running within 5 or so minutes of the scheduled time. As a side note, it seems like the “Transit” app is more reliable than Google maps for time estimation for public transportation here (and for RTD in Colorado). In addition to the train system, the city has a network of community “B-cycles” which include both electric and non-electric options. Finally, the city is teeming with electric scooters. These are more expensive, clocking in at around 3 times the cost of a community bike. A phrase I’d really like to introduce for when a bunch of Lime scooters are bunched together on a curb is “a squeeze of Limes” 🍋.
“Oh look, a squeeze of Limes!”
Modest, but effective SLC transit system
City Layout
Something that immediately sticks out about SLC is their ginormous block sizes, which make you feel like all of a sudden you have shrunk! The below diagram is an illustrative way of seeing how four major cities lay out their blocks. Th seemingly simple decision of “block size” is an underrated factor in shaping a city’s culture. Interestingly, many block dimensions are divisible by 66 ft, since this was the length of a popular surveying tool dating back to the 15th century. In addition to the huge block sizes, the city layout is very organized, with streets running directly in the East/West and North/South directions. The street names also follow a convention based on how far south or west they are from Temple Square, the place where the original pioneers deemed the epicenter of SLC. Most of the organizational decisions for the layout of SLC can be traced back to Joseph Smith’s “Plat of the City Zion” structure. The large block sizes give the city an open, uncramped feel, which is also probably due to the relatively low density of the city (population 204,000, 110 mi^2). So, in addition to it’s usual helpful use cases, satellite imagery of SLC can also serve as grid paper if you’re in a pinch!
Western Grid Samples
Wide sidewalk
I was curious about the sidewalk length, so here are some additional measurements taken from Google Maps.
Sidewalk width of approximately 6 ft
Street width of approximately 95 ft
Other Notes
Church Influence
The influence of the religion is also notable in SLC. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has some spectacular sites, and names like “Joseph Smith” and “Nauvoo” pop up frequently around the city. It reminded me a bit of visiting European cities, but with a time shift forward. The style of the central church strangely reminded me of the United Nations in NYC – both modern looking concrete structures lined with flags.
United Nations
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Homelessness
Unfortunately, homelessness is a rising problem in SLC. Like in Boulder, it seems that the homeless population is congregated near the public library and downtown area. According to one article (linked below), SLC was able to reduce it’s homeless population significantly between 2005 and 2015 with a “housing first” policy that has since dropped off. Collaboration between private and public housing has also dwindled since and homelessness has been on the rise.
Urban Planning for Pedestrians
Salt Lake City seems to be both commuter and car friendly. The only caveat here is that since the block sizes are so large, when something is “a couple blocks away”, it simply takes longer than say in NYC to get there. My initial thought was that because of the incredibly wide streets (6 lanes in some parts), car ownership must be high. It turns out that SLC car ownership is actually right around the national average. Because the streets were made to be wide enough to turn around a horse-drawn carriage, now traffic flows easily through the city. However, this also means that cars travel at higher speeds posing a higher threat to pedestrians. As somebody elegantly put it, having wide streets is “a blessing-curse sandwich”. More recently, SLC has been repainting the street space, especially in the downtown with large bike lanes. I think this is a smart initiative, and found it easy and safe to bike around town in the well marked bike lanes. I hope other towns can adopt this strategy of transforming wide roads for more pedestrian friendly use cases (for example, Fort Collins in Colorado has huge streets that I believe could benefit from the addition of bike lanes). From what I’ve seen, this is an urban design strategy that is both economical and effective.
Google Map snip of biking lanes in SLC
Example of bike lane in SLC, I think it could benefit with extra barriers
Conclusions
I was impressed by SLC’s unique charm. Mid-April turned out to be a beautiful time to visit, with flowers in full bloom and the temperature sitting at about 45-65 F. The SLC locals I briefly chatted with expressed a fondness for SCL’s culture which featured different events each weekend at it’s grand expo center, safety for walking (in most parts) around town, cleanliness, and accessibility to hiking trails. I was pleased to get a glimpse into SLC, and hope to return to explore some more and check out the other cities nearby!
Some delightful flowers