200 South gets its "braces" off as SLC and UTA celebrate downtown's first bus corridor. 

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• Benjamin Wood
• UTA chairman Carlton Christensen (left), Salt Lake City Erin Mendenhall (center) and Bar X owner Duncan Burrell (right) ceremonially open a new bus-priority lane on 200 South on Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024.

Before cutting the ribbon on downtown's first bus-priority lanes on Tuesday, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall compared the now-completed construction on 200 South to a person who is unrecognizable after having their braces removed.

Standing at the corner of 200 South and Main Street, Mendenhall noted the various improvements to the streetscape—like bigger sidewalks, safer crossings and floating bus-boarding islands that improve transit efficiency while providing a protective buffer between cyclists and high-speed car traffic.

"The reopening of 2nd South is a shining example of what city streets can look like, especially in our downtown that has such abundantly wide downtown city streets" Mendenhall said. "Since 2022, crews have been working tirelessly to transform this street into one that makes getting around easier than ever."

Mendenhall said the changes to 200 South—stemming from the 2018 Funding our Future bond approved by voters—is part of a larger vision to make downtown Salt Lake City a place where a private vehicle isn't required for daily life. She described residents using the bus and bike lanes to travel to their workplaces, or families and visitors walking from a transit stop to hotels, bars, restaurants, performances and everything else that downtown has to offer.

"You can go car-lite or even without a car altogether, and 2nd South is a great example of where you can live, work and play and do that," Mendenhall said. "By investing in projects like this, we’re cutting traffic and we’re also helping to improve our air quality. This is the kind of future that Salt Lake is creating and we’re doing it together with our business community, our partners at UTA and our residents who live here."

The new transit lanes are not "bus-only," as drivers can still utilize the space to enter and exit driveways and to turn right at intersections. But drivers are prohibited from using them as traditional lanes for through-traffic, which will significantly reduce the amount of delay caused by vehicle congestion. The floating bus islands also improve transit efficiency, allowing drivers to remain in their lane of travel while passengers enter and exit the vehicle.

The street is the single busiest bus corridor in the state of Utah, connecting the Frontrunner regional train at Salt Lake Central Station to Trax light rail on Main Street and the University of Utah further east. Several high-frequency routes utilize the enhanced bus lanes and boarding islands—including the 1, the 2, the 4, and the 209—along with several standard-frequency routes and the 107, High Valley Transit's free bus to Park City, which was recently upgraded to a 90-minute frequency.

UTA also plans to expand the number of routes on 200 South, with the agency's long-term plans including a doubling up of the 2 bus (achieving a roughly 7-minute frequency on that line) and a future express service between Salt Lake City and Davis County that has been in the works since the construction of the Legacy Parkway, when the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) included a hypothetical light-rail line in its environmental impact documents associated with the highway.

Carlton Christensen, chairman of the Utah Transit Authority Board of Trustees, described 200 South as the "crossroads" of the transit network.

"This is a critical corridor for us," he said. "We have 10 bus routes currently going up and down this corridor—that’s 34 buses per hour."

The two-year wait for 200 South to fully reopen strained local businesses and residents, and was exacerbated by adjacent residential construction—most notably the nearly-completed Astra tower—and utility work that delayed the project. Duncan Burrell, co-owner of Bar X and Beer Bar, acknowledged those challenges, but thanked the project staff for maintaining open communication with stakeholders.

With construction wrapping up, Burrell said he was excited about what the street changes and new residential presence will mean for the area around 200 South and 200 East, where his businesses are located.

"No one in the process had it easy," he said. "We at Bar X and Beer Bar couldn’t be happier that the project is done. We cannot wait for the future and for the continued growth around what we feel is the heart of downtown—2nd and 2nd."

Burrell remarked on the adage that a rising tide lifts all ships, and how downtown Salt Lake City increasingly feels like a community of partners and neighbors, rather than competitors.

"We’re planning to be here on 2nd South for a long time to come," he said. "Please come by for beer and some great food and then visit every single business along the way."

Mendenhall and Christensen said there are no plans to add bus-priority lanes to additional Salt Lake City streets, with Christensen elaborating that the high volume of transit routes on 200 South make the corridor uniquely suited to the construction of dedicated facilities and road space. They also said there are no current plans to reinstate the Free Fare February promotion of 2022—which was partially repeated during the NBA All-Star Game in 2023—but noted that the downtown core remains a free fare zone and that many schools, businesses and other community institutions participate in pass programs that provide free and discounted fares to riders.

"It was, I think, tremendously successful and the largest experiment with free fare duration, system wide, that we’d ever done," Mendenhall said of Free Fare February. "We are growing—our downtown residential population is doubling since 2020—and it is a worthwhile thing for us to pursue another test of that system, but no plans specifically to do so."