Utah Governor Spencer Cox said a Winter Olympics in 2030 or 2034 could bring with it some big infrastructure improvements Wednesday.
“If you think back to 2002, some of the changes that were made, transportation I think is a big one,” Cox said. “There was a big push to do some major transportation projects that needed to be done.”
Ahead of the 2002 Olympics, the federal government gave the Utah Transit Authority $241 million to build what is now the TRAX light rail system in Salt Lake City.
The Park City area also saw its fair share of projects thanks to state funding. The flyover ramp connecting U.S. 40 and Interstate 80 was constructed. State routes 224 and 248 were repaved in addition to new bus shelters and pedestrian walkways.
The governor said if Utah is awarded a future Olympics, the next decade could bring a lot of change.
“I truly believe that this next 10 years, this will be Utah’s decade,” Cox said. “As we lead up to the Olympics, hopefully we have a Major League Baseball team that gets announced during that time frame… I think that mass transit projects, we did a lot of those and of course we’re paying off and being responsible as we should, but I think there’s an opportunity for us to expand some of the mass transit, some of those last mile projects that need to be done.”
Cox said he’d specifically like to see more trails and trains.
“I’m really excited to see what that multimodal transportation looks like in our state,” the governor said. “The walking paths, running paths, bike paths… [Senate] President [Stuart] Adams and I, we love trains. So we’re really big on more train transportation here in our country and in our state.”
The International Olympic Committee will announce the hosts of the 2030 and 2034 Winter Games together next summer. Utah’s organizing committee has consistently said it prefers the 2034 date, but remains open to hosting in 2030. Utah is the only bid for the 2034 Games.
