Salt Lake County, Utah
West Bench Project Analysis

The West Bench Project is a proposed development on the western side of Salt Lake County, Utah, that seeks to create a series of transit-oriented new towns on the 75,000-acre development site. The total development program included 200,000dwelling units with a population of 500,000 people and 59 million square feet of commercial/industrial space. This development would be spread among six new communities. The developer, Kennecott Land Corporation, was seeking entitlement to develop this program without conventional, site-based master plans.

In essence, the project involved translating a broad vision for large-scale transit-oriented development into an actual program of development that could be rationally evaluated. The Camiros team included specialists in development economics, fiscal analysis, public finance, public transit and transportation. Detailed analyses of fiscal, financial, transportation, and land use implications of the West Bench Project were produced. These products assessed whether the development of the West Bench site would result in the kind of TOD communities called for in the West Bench General Plan and what the impacts might be on Salt Lake County and the quality-of-life in the region. The Camiros team also prepared a toolkit of analysis programs to help Salt Lake County track impacts, improvement needs and performance indicators over the course of time.

A key aspect of the West Bench Project is the creation of new, transit-oriented communities within the existing urbanized region. The Camiros team determined that:

1. The TOD principles contained in the West Bench General Plan could be translated into the land use, transportation and programming policies needed to structure development on this 75,000 acre site.

2. The compact form and intensity of development could support the extension of light rail transit service, as measured in capital cost per passenger mile and operational cost per passenger mile.

3. The transit-oriented form of development and mixed-use programming would result in a 30% - 40% reduction in vehicle miles traveled when compared to conventional suburban development.

4. Transit-oriented development would result in lower capital and maintenance costs for roadway extensions and widening when compared to conventional suburban development.

5. The development programming work provided by the Camiros team provides a model for evaluating future development proposal and a framework for evaluating whether these proposals will meet West Bench performance benchmarks.