History
Ballpark is near the point where the Salt Lake and Utah interurban streetcar line crossed the first mainline built south from Salt Lake City (which has been known by many names, but is most associated with the Union Pacific Railroad). The TRAX tracks north of the station follow the old route of the Salt Lake and Utah, while the tracks south of the area follow those used by Union Pacific. The electrified spur track visible to the northwest of the current station is the northern continuation of the original Union Pacific mainline; only a few traces of the southern continuation of the Salt Lake and Utah line (which headed due southwest to the vicinity of UTA's Redwood Junction station before turning south) remain.
In 1997, when planning for the rebuilt Sandy/Salt Lake line, UTA had envisioned that the area around the station would go through an urban renewal, with some of the older houses renovated and new multi-family living constructed around the station. However, UTA property manager Richard Swenson admitted that, "I don't think developers have caught the vision yet." The station was part of the original TRAX line (now the Blue Line), which opened 4 December 1999. Students from the nearby Horizonte Instruction and Training Center painted a mural along the side of one of the businesses that are located along the west side of the station in 2000, which were frequent targets for graffiti artists. A Salt Lake City official stated that these murals help keep down graffiti because "...the gangs for some reason respect that kind of artwork."
The Park and Ride lot was filled to capacity on most nights during the 2002 Winter Olympics due to the high use of TRAX and buses by locals and spectators. In 2003, Ballpark had the third highest auto-theft numbers out of all TRAX stations, behind Historic Sandy and Sandy Civic Center. On 31 October 2006, then-governor Jon Huntsman, Jr. held a press conference at the station to support Proposition 3, which instituted a quarter-cent raise in the state's sales tax in Salt Lake and Utah counties. Proposition 3 included funding for FrontRunner and, at the time, 33 unknown projects in Salt Lake County.
Read more about this topic: Ball Park (UTA Station)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“As I am, so shall I associate, and so shall I act; Caesar’s history will paint out Caesar.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The history of all Magazines shows plainly that those which have attained celebrity were indebted for it to articles similar in natureto Berenice—although, I grant you, far superior in style and execution. I say similar in nature. You ask me in what does this nature consist? In the ludicrous heightened into the grotesque: the fearful coloured into the horrible: the witty exaggerated into the burlesque: the singular wrought out into the strange and mystical.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)