urbanescapee

Hey Gang,

I recently moved to SLC and may have a job opportunity just to the West of the airport. I'm considering biking it and I'll be riding from the Sugar House area. Google maps shows a bike path running East-West immediately south of the airport and north of I-80 (partly along a canal as best as I can tell from satellite images of the area. My questions are: does anyone know that this is actually a passable/lawful bike route? and if so, what's the deal with the gates (I can see them on the satellite image) that route the path under Terminal drive and partly though a golf course? The only other alternate route to get to my potential new gig would require that I overshoot to the West and then back track, thus adding another mile or so. Thanks in advance for any local insight.

urbanescapee

Well, I got the job! I guess I'll just have to preview the route over the weekend so I don't risk being late to work if it isn't passable.

urbanescapee

So in my first week of the new job, they already asked me to work Saturday...ugh. I was already planning to pre-run the route on Saturday to verify that it's passable by bike before I risked being late on a workday. So I just decided to ride to my Saturday workday instead and I told them I might be in a bit later. As it turns out, the aforementioned route IS a real bike route. Though it's not accessible 24/7, the hours of access would probably work fine for a majority of bike commuters.

A brief description:
As I approached the airport from the East on W N Temple ave I instinctively turned South onto 2400 W because looking straight ahead (toward the West) on W N Temple was a rather uninviting security gate. I ended up on N Temple and I stopped to check my Google Maps because something didn't feel quite right. I turned around and returned to the security gate. I could see on my Google Maps that the bike path was supposed to pass through this gate, but it really didn't look at all like any member of the public should be admitted through this gate. I got closer and closer to the gate, weary that I might be raising suspicions of a watchful security guard in a monitoring room somewhere. Then finally I saw it, a comparatively small black and white sign posted on the gate detailing bike path access hours. The gate has a typical rolling/sliding opening for vehicles to pass through, but it also has a swinging pedestrian gate next to that. The gates appear to be code protected so I wasn't sure if you had to have a code to enter. I pulled on the handle for the pedestrian gate, and viola, it opened, no code required. I passed through a total of five gates just like this one and rode past three sets of Instrument Landing Systems (ILS) before I exited the property on the Western edge of the airport. The path takes you surprisingly close to the ends of some runways and parked aircraft via a sort of no-mans-land between two perimeter fences surrounding the airport. I didn't see a soul on my way into work on that path and on the way back home I only saw two airport employees, each in a pickup truck, probably performing perimeter checks. Neither of them gave a rip about my being there.


Anyway, I'm not sure if I'll continue bike commuting because a large portion of the ride between my home and work passes though a heavy-industrial zone chock full of power plants, train yards, warehouses, manufacturing facilities, and homeless camps. There were so many different, horrible, and concentrated sights/smells along the route that I'd fear for my health and safety if I made this a regular thing. Just wanted to give some closure to this post in case anyone else was wondering about the path South of the airport. Gates are marked on the map image and access hours are pictured.

tim_bike

Any updates on commuting in SLC winter? I'll be coming there and will be bike-only.