Salt Lake Transit News Thread

[Makid]

UTA’s big choice: increase bus frequency or cover more areas

https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2019/07/25/utas-big-choice-increase/

The Utah Transit Authority Board faces a big question that could refocus its bus service for years, and create a new set of winners and losers among taxpayers.

Should it increase bus frequency in busy, densely populated areas to increase ridership, or should it spend its money instead to cover more geographic areas — including in sparsely populated neighborhoods?

The board has a self-imposed deadline to decide by the end of the month how to balance those competing interests. No matter what, that seems bound to upset some and please others.

The board recently heard reports about what the public and local officials want: they generally prefer increasing frequency in busy areas by cutting back on geographic coverage.

In Salt Lake, Utah and Tooele counties, the public said it prefers that existing service remain about where it is: with 60% of service targeting increased ridership and 40% providing service in expanded coverage areas. Stakeholder groups, however, prefer making it a 70-30 split toward more frequent service in busy areas.

If new service is added in those three counties, both the public and stakeholders prefer using a 70-30 split with such new money toward increasing ridership.

Opinions are a bit different in Davis, Weber and Box Elder counties — where the current service split now is 40% for ridership and 60% for coverage. Both the public and stakeholders there prefer changing that to a 50-50 split.

For any new service added with additional money, the public would like to see it also follow a 50-50 split — but stakeholders want the divide to be 60-40 for more frequency in densely populated areas.

The board aims to set final mixes for future bus service soon, probably at its next meeting on July 31. That would allow it to keep on schedule for more in-depth planning on how to alter routes to improve overall service.

I would love for SL County to move to a 70/30 split as recommended by the stakeholders and agree that new money should be the same.

I am also happy to see that Utah County wants this as well.

The bigger shock is the change in Weber and Davis Counties towards an even split or even going to a 60/40 split as in SL County and Utah County today.

This shift, if approved would not be implemented until August of 2020. It would realign many routes and roughly quadruple the amount of 15 minute or better frequency bus routes in SL County alone and possibly triple the number of routes in Utah County.

I know there are estimates for what the ridership would be for the increased frequencies but I can't remember off hand what they would be but I think it was a nearly 50% or more overall increase in ridership after the first year and a 20% decrease in vehicle traffic along the routes.