Using drones to fly people? Utah development planning for it

Drones are already flying packages right to your door, but one development believes Utah is ready for a drone to fly people.

Lowry Snow, co-chairman of The Point, says planners of the 600-acre residential and commercial development at the Point of the Mountain in Draper think it’s finally time to look seriously at drone taxis.

“When you're trying to look to the future downstream, 20 years, 30 years, it only makes sense that you plan for this potential," Snow said. “I'm going to say strong probability, that we're going to see that actually come to pass and be a mode of transportation at this location.”

Snow believes The Point, located right between Metro Salt Lake City and Metro Utah County, will be the perfect spot to innovate drone taxis.

“It's exciting because it is a place to create just not an environment to capture some futuristic idea that doesn't exist, but to capture a future idea that's going to support this kind of a project that is directed towards innovation and technology," he said.

The development hopes to bring tens of thousands of people to the area. As part of the deal with the state to develop the site along the I-15 corridor, the legislature directed planners to pursue transportation innovation.

“The mandate placed on the board for us to look at the best methods of transportation," Snow said. “To improve quality of life and also protect and protect our air those are all important things”

The technology is well on its way, as the same aerospace engineers studying The Point are already looking at other locations around the world.

“It would be a shame, for example, 10 years from now, for someone to say, 'Too bad that leadership didn't look at this issue, because we could have really used it now, and now it's billed out, or a good share of it is billed out,'” Snow explained. “We want to be ahead of that issue.”

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