Weber State University students may have difficulties finding parking and navigating campus for the rest of this semester due to construction of the Wildcat Shuttle campus bus line.

This construction, which began in early November, will connect the busway to Harrison Boulevard and should be finished by the end of 2022, depending on weather and other external factors. Though the project does not plan to shut down Dixon Drive, certain factors may lead to road closures.

“As part of the current campus construction, the south entrance to the A1 parking lot is temporarily closed while new utilities are run under this roadway near the University Circle,” Chad Downs, the senior project manager, said.

Ogden Express, Utah Transit Authority and WSU will be busy during the following year completing the on-campus bus line, landscaping and more bus lines off campus.

“There is also landscaping work along the remainder of the campus OGX route that still needs to be finalized next spring, and various details such as the glass windscreens at the three campus OGX stations, each of which showcases a different local artist’s work, are currently being installed this month,” Downs said.

Over the past year and a half, WSU has been doing construction on creating a bus line to run through campus with the main stops being the Shepherd Union, Wildcat Village and the Dee Events Center.

This construction will connect the bus route to Harrison Boulevard and the Ogden Transit Center in downtown Ogden. Stops will be along Harrison Boulevard and 25th Street and will also include the McKay-Dee Hospital and The Junction.

WSU isn’t the only place dealing with construction. In fact, many busy Ogden streets will be undergoing construction to aid with this new bus system.

“Currently, the majority of the construction on the new OGX bus line is occurring along Harrison Boulevard, as well as some work on 25th and 23rd Streets in Ogden, to enable the full OGX route to open up before classes begin next year in August of 2023,” Downs said “This is when the entire OGX project is slated to be substantially complete, with the public being able to ride upon the new electric buses from campus to connect to downtown Ogden.”

The OGX project, which has cost around $120 million, will allow students who live or work off campus to get to WSU from almost anywhere in Ogden. All buses running on this system will be electric and parking at the Dee Events Center will be free in an effort to push students to take the bus and assist in WSU’s environmental consciousness efforts.

This project is also being done in an effort to make Ogden more of a college town and to get more WSU students off campus and into the community of Ogden. These bus lines will also provide those who want to spend more time on campus with a more economical and environment-friendly way of getting to and from WSU’s main campus.

The large budget also allows the Wildcat Shuttle to run without charging riders. WSU students already receive free UTA cards as part of their student fees, and this project hopes to enable students to have better access to transit. As of right now, OGX makes stops on each of the campus locations around every 10 minutes between 6:30 a.m. and 8:30 p.m. on weekdays and every 15-30 minutes on weekends.

OGX is the first all-electric bus rapid transit system in the state of Utah, and Ogden is one of the first cities in Utah to have a BRT system, with Provo and Orem also working on their own BRT systems. This BRT system hopes to have the efficiency and capacity as a light rail system while also being cost-efficient, thus using a bussing system.

Construction for the project began in early 2021 with the Ogden International Hub and stops along Washington Boulevard, and it will end in 2023 with the completion of the Harrison Boulevard line.

WSU has many construction projects planned for the coming years, including a renovation of the McKay Education Building, which will be similar to the previous renovation of Lindquist Hall, and has recently finished the Noorda Engineering Building and the main on-campus section of the OGX bus line, which was officially unveiled in August of this year.

WSU is also in talks to explore a private-public partnership for housing, renovations for the Center of Diversity and Equity, a hotel on Harrison and renovations of the Stewart Stadium East bleachers.

“There are always upcoming projects on campus, with building renovations slated to concur,” Downs said. “Most of these will be started after spring commencement during the summer semester so as to impact folks on campus as little as possible.”