Utah's Love-Hate Affair with Mass Transit
Sean Breazeal
Every time a new mass-transit initiative is proposed in Utah, it goes over
like a lead balloon. Why is this? It is no doubt partly due to prior inept management by
the Utah Transit Authority, an organization disliked with fierce vehemence by many
citizens. Driving the streets of Salt Lake City is still the quickest way to travel,
despite endless traffic headaches and roadwork.
The history of mass transit in Utah began
in 1889. Salt Lake City strung electrical wires around the city to power a trolley system
that eventually covered most of the city's developed area. The system ran efficiently
until explosive growth overwhelmed the capacity of early transit. In 1926, a short-lived
"trackless trolley" system began service, a precursor to the modern bus system.
By 1930, however, Utah was in the grips of the Great Depression and funding for the system
had all but disappeared. By the late 1940s almost all aspects of mass transit in Utah were
erased and unused rail lines slipped into disrepair.
As growth and prosperity returned to Salt
Lake's valley in the 1960s, the first interstate through the city was built. Cars could
now move with speed and agility into urban areas; surface streets, however, were not
equipped to handle a high amount of traffic and were constantly gridlocked. In 1970, with
the help of federal funding, Salt Lake's next generation of mass transit came into play:
the Utah Transit Authority (UTA). 67 buses began servicing the city, but from the
beginning the endeavor was in trouble. After close to 30 years without any kind of mass
transit, few people were interested in returning to the painfully slow buses.
Long-distance service between suburbs was sparse and evening service was not provided at
all. It simply wasn't a viable alternative to driving. By 1995 the beleaguered transit
system had grown, and today you're bound to see major arterials teeming with buses. Take a
closer look at those buses, however, and you'll notice they're practically empty. Buses
ferrying downtown workers to and from their suburban homes are stuffed full during the
peak rush hours, but outside of those peak times, they roam the streets looking for a
reason to exist. Many evening buses are virtually riderless and daytime buses outside the
downtown core have a sparse clientele of lower income residents and the elderly. Looking
at a map of bus routes throughout the city, a potential rider is led through a tangled
snarl of complicated routes.
UTA finally recognized the shortcomings
in its presentation to the public, and in recent years it has done a far better job of
informing riders of route changes and new services. Sadly, ridership is still scraping the
bare bottom, with some routes averaging only 1.3 passengers per mile. Simply put, were it
not for the new TRAX light rail system which is experiencing huge ridership, UTA would be
left floundering in debt.
TRAX, the light rail addition to the
city's mass transit cadre, was finally opened to public use in December of 1999 - to great
unenthusiasm, of course. The project was always facing attack from outspoken critics
claiming it would never function to its potential. The more easily-misled citizens decried
the conversion a lane of Main Street to rail use, forgetting that a streetcar line
successfully shared the street with cars some sixty years earlier. They claimed TRAX would
lead to incessant traffic delays by trains passing through intersection, which in
actuality takes a mere 20 seconds.
Defying naysayers, TRAX has exploded in
popularity since its inception. During the opening weeks, ridership consisted mostly of
people going to Utah Jazz basketball games at the Delta Center and people riding for sheer
novelty. Revenues from the system skyrocketed, prompting critics to proclaim that once the
fad wore down, their predictions of fiscal doom and gloom would come true.
Once again proving its critics wrong,
TRAX's ridership is strong and has brought a new appreciation for mass transit to Salt
Lake City.
In May of this year, the go-ahead for a
new east-west light rail line running from the downtown core to the University of Utah was
given. Once again, naysayers are jumping out of the woodwork claiming that businesses will
be disrupted and congestion will increase. Contrary to those predictions, downtown
merchants in Salt Lake City are applauding the TRAX project, saying that once lagging
sales have reached new peaks. Initiating a new urban revitalization campaign, Salt Lake
mayor Rocky Anderson is tapping into the new market of riders from the far suburbs, who
now only need to drive half as far to visit downtown thanks to speedy TRAX. The light rail
line could very well spell revival for the city's long-cursed downtown.
Since TRAX, the biggest news to hit the
valley are plans for a 100-mile long high-speed commuter rail system to connect the 52
towns and cities along the greater Wasatch Front metropolitan area, from Spanish Fork to
Brigham City. It would use existing rail right-of-ways. The plan must leap some hurdles,
however, in both lack of construction funding and the necessity of increasing municipal
taxes by one quarter of a percentile until the system is making money on its own.
Utah is growing rapidly, with most of the
growth occurring along already congested transportation corridors. Mass transit is
something that can no longer be discounted when considering transportation options, as it
has in so many years past. Freeways are already at capacity, threatening to tear into
businesses and homes to relieve congestion. Citizens and visitors are more frustrated than
ever when arriving from regions where transit is well-developed, efficient, and most
importantly of all, accessible. Slowly, however, we're getting there.
Sean Breazeal is a GIS expert working
for the State of Utah. He lives in Salt Lake City.