After years of complaints, South Salt Lake City has fixed a killer curb for cyclists
On the Street
By Benjamin Wood @BjaminWood
For the past year, urban explorer Bryant Heath used this space to zoom in on some of the incredible details that make our city great. Those details are often so commonplace—speed limit signs, holiday decorations, alley murals—that a typical person is likely as not to overlook them.
Unfortunately, Heath is a busy guy and will be stepping away from this column. On behalf of City Weekly, I want to thank him for his contributions, which are among the top-performing articles on our website. I would also encourage readers to continue following Heath on Instagram at @slsees.
While I can't match his positivity, I'm more than capable of obsessing over street minutiae—like the noxious "death curb" (my words) at Main Street and Central Pointe Place that finally met its demise after years of complaints.
South Salt Lake City is actively and inexplicably hostile to active transportation and has made decisions for its built environment that—intentionally or not—kneecap cycling as a legitimate travel option. The most obvious of these choices surround the S-Line Streetcar, where a companion trail disappears for one block between State Street and Main Street, reappears for one block between Main Street and West Temple and then disappears again, sending users on a meandering and inconvenient detour to 300 West around (but not into) the Central Pointe Trax Station.
To make matters worse, South Salt Lake opted to place a hard curb in front of the final segment of the S-Line Trail—a textbook example of safety-by-committee deciding it makes sense for people to cross the street twice sideways in order to move forward. Every natural instinct of someone biking west on the S-Line Trail leads them to simply continue ahead, where they slam headfirst into a curb that's intended for "safety."
I first tangled with Central Pointe Place on a 999 ride in 2019. It was dark—but not that late—and the curb was hard to see and even harder to predict. Both of my tires popped instantly and I was thrown over my handlebars.
Once introduced, I watched Central Pointe become a rite of passage for local cyclists to first encounter and subsequently loathe. People were moved to take matters into their own hands, often painting warnings and calls for city leadership to "Remove This Barrier".
Apparently someone noticed, because the curb was demolished this summer and cut into a direct-access ramp (above photo). Unknown is whether this is just a one-off or if it portends more improvements by South Salt Lake, like adding a bike lane to Central Pointe Place or finally extending the trail into Central Pointe Station—thus making car-free travel to Sugar House considerably more practical for mainstream Utahns.
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About The Author
Benjamin Wood
Lifelong Utahn Benjamin Wood has worn the mantle of City Weekly's news editor since 2021. He studied journalism at Utah State University and previously wrote for The Salt Lake Tribune, the Deseret News and Entertainment Weekly
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