Utah Senate President Stuart Adams, who has been a vocal proponent of improving Utah’s transit system, told reporters Friday he was “disappointed” to hear about a mistake in Idaho that has derailed efforts to connect Boise and Salt Lake City by passenger train.

Even though it was previously reported that the federal government denied an application from the Idaho Department of Transportation for a $500,000 grant to study how to join Boise and Salt Lake City by passenger rail, an Idaho-based news outlet dug into the issue and found the state hadn’t actually applied for the right grant.

Idaho officials had accidentally submitted the application to a different federal program, BoiseDev first reported Thursday. The application should have been sent through the Federal Rail Administration’s Corridor Identification and Development program (also known as Corridor ID), but the Idaho Transportation Department applied for another program, called the Intercity Passenger Rail Grant Program.

“We made a mistake,” John Tomlinson, Idaho Transportation Department communication manager, told the outlet. “Inadvertently, one of our staff members submitted the application for this Corridor ID to the wrong link.”

Idaho was supposed to submit the application on behalf of several partners in the project, including the cities of Boise, Nampa, Caldwell and Pocatello, as well as Salt Lake City and the Utah Department of Transportation, BoiseDev reported.

Utah officials express disappointment over Idaho Transportation Department’s grant mistake

Asked about the report Friday, Utah’s Senate president told reporters he was “concerned” and “disappointed to hear about that, and hopefully we’ll correct it.”

The Senate president said he’ll look more into the issue.

“I’m on it,” he said, adding that expanding Utah’s passenger rail system is “something that’s very dear to my heart, and I’ll go after it.”

A spokesperson for Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall also expressed disappointment in a statement Friday.

“This news is disappointing,” the spokesperson said, “but Mayor Mendenhall supports passenger rail expansion and Salt Lake City will continue to identify ways to move the project forward, whether through local funding or additional grant opportunities that become available.”

While Adams, R-Layton, said Utah’s Department of Transportation is “doing a great job,” he also said Utah has a long way to go to improve and expand its passenger rail system. “We need to move it to another level.”

Adams said he’s been to other countries where trains speed along at 180 mph — meanwhile Utah’s FrontRunner is still running at 79 mph.

“We’re not a third world country, I hope,” Adams said. “We’re acting like perhaps we are, with rail.”

Adams said Utah is “not going to build another freeway” along the Point of the Mountain, so “we need to fix our transit system.”

“We need to move faster, we need to double track it, we need to electrify it, we need to do express trains,” Adams said. “If you can get from Provo to Salt Lake City in 20 mins, you’re going to ride the rail. If it takes you an hour and half you’re going to drive your car.”

Utah lawmakers have in recent years put a significant amount of funding toward transit. In 2021, for example, lawmakers put $200 million toward double tracking certain sections of FrontRunner.

“There’s so many opportunities out there; we’re working on all of them,” Adams said. “We have to make public transit more efficient, because it is the future.”

Senate Majority Assistant Whip Kirk Cullimore, R-Sandy, noted the Wasatch Front is among the most dense, urban areas in the U.S., and it’s still growing at a rapid pace that highways and roads alone can’t accommodate.

“There’s only so many roads we can build,” Cullimore said. “We’re going to continue to grow and if we’re going to do that to maintain our quality of life we’ve got to be looking at transit options.”

What about Utah’s SLC-Vegas grant?

While the Idaho Transportation Department was supposed to file the application for the Salt Lake to Boise passenger rail study, the Utah Department of Transportation was responsible for applying for a grant to study Salt Lake City to Las Vegas passenger rail.

Asked Friday whether UDOT indeed submitted its application, John Gleason, a spokesperson for the department, told Utah News Dispatch to the department’s knowledge it was submitted correctly.

“As far as we know there weren’t any issues with the application process or how we filed it,” he said.

Gleason said UDOT does not yet have information on why the grant application for the Salt Lake to Vegas study wasn’t approved, but he said the department is supposed to meet with federal grant officials in a “review meeting” expected in the next couple of weeks to discuss it.

“We want to make sure we’re doing everything we can to get those federal funds,” he said.

Gleason said he wasn’t sure if UDOT could try again for the grant, “but we are absolutely interested in investigating it.”

“Anytime there’s a transportation solution that can give people choices because not everyone drives … we just want to provide options for people,” he said. “We’re not sure how feasible passenger rail would be (between Salt Lake and Vegas), but it’s something that definitely deserves a look.”

Gleason said he’s been talking with “our partners in Idaho,” and “they were very honest about it and said, ‘We made a mistake on our end.’”

“They’ve been very up front about wanting to partner again in the future,” Gleason said. “We’re absolutely interested in that. So the next time there is an opportunity to apply for the grant, that’s something we’ll work together on.”