OGX wrapping up with construction, on schedule for August opening
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- The newly paved OGX bus route from the 36th and Harrison stop looking north is shown in this photo taken on May 21, 2023. The opening for the entire route is projected to take place in August.
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- Newly painted routes for the Ogden Express bus rapid transit system run along Harrison Boulevard in this photo shared May 23, 2023.
OGDEN — The Ogden Express bus rapid transit system that will connect downtown Ogden to Weber State University and McKay-Dee Hospital is entering the odds-and-ends phase before finally opening to the public.
James Larson, senior internal communications and marketing strategist with the Utah Transit Authority, told the Standard-Examiner that most of the major construction has wrapped up or will be finished within the next few days.
“All the major paving road construction is going to wrap up by Sunday,” he said. “We’re doing final striping on 23rd (Street), Harrison (Boulevard) and up at Weber State University. After that point, we mainly just have a few little punch list items. Some of the concrete — the way it cured, we need to just fix a few patches here and there. We’ve got some landscaping, a little bit of electrical, the security cameras need to be put on the stations. Then we have a few stations — I think there’s four stations — that we still are waiting for the art glasswork for the stations.”
Larson said there will be other work going on behind the scenes before the August ribbon-cutting.
“From now until then, we’re going to be doing testing, making sure the signal priorities and lights are working properly,” he said. “We’re adding an additional 10 buses that will run the entire route. Right now, based upon our initial figures, we’re looking at an initial travel time from one end to the other of about 15-18 minutes.”
Larson said that the ribbon-cutting for the line is still set to take place at 10 a.m. Aug. 2 at Skinny Dogz (formerly Fat Cats) in The Junction. Several dignitaries will be on-site for the occasion.
The full service will be broken in just after the ribbon-cutting.
“We’re officially going to open up the 19th (of August). We’ll be rolling from FrontRunner to The Junction and then over to Washington (Boulevard) and back-and-forth,” Larson said. “Then on the 20th it officially opens up.”
He said the fare will be free for the first three years, but this is a timeframe that could expand in the future.
“With UVX (Utah Valley Express), we ran free service for three years,” he said. “Once we hit three years, we were able to get another grant, so we extended UVX for free for another two years. It just depends on what the government has set aside to help people utilize public transportation.”
Larson said that the community deserves a lot of credit for its patience throughout the three-year project.
“We appreciate them being patient through this whole construction process as they’ve been trying to get to and from Harrison Boulevard, Wall Avenue, 25th Street” he said. “It hasn’t been easy for people to travel through those areas and we understand that.”