Salt Lake Transit News Thread - Page 244

billbillbillbill · #**4861** Posted **Feb 22, 2013, 5:36 PM**

They have already given the rough update of what is changing in April. My guess since it wasn't listed on their list is the "white" line coming back at the August Change right before the new school year.

SLC Projects · #**4862** Posted **Feb 23, 2013, 3:46 PM**

Trax testing at the Salt Lake Airport Trax station
Video of a Trax Train pulling up towards to new Trax Station at the airport.

• Video Link

ajiuO · #**4863** Posted **Feb 26, 2013, 7:38 AM**

I'm betting yellow line

UTPlanner · #**4864** Posted **Feb 26, 2013, 4:35 PM**

I think we should be really careful about stating that the University to Downtown line is a done deal. Matt Sibul, who is a planner for UTA was discussing a hypothetical situation in the quote mentioned earlier. I've asked around the City & County Building and nobody has heard anything about this becoming an actuality. The Mayor has discussed in the past that he would like to see it happen but nobody in his office that I talked to has heard anything about it happening any time soon. I'm not saying it couldn't happen but if it were going to happen this year you would think that it would be mentioned in their annual budget as it would require significant funding. From what I've seen it is not mentioned.

scottharding · #**4865** Posted **Feb 26, 2013, 5:45 PM**

Does anyone know what the official date for the airport line opening is? It's in April, right?

stayinginformed · #**4866** Posted **Feb 26, 2013, 6:11 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by scottharding

Does anyone know what the official date for the airport line opening is? It's in April, right?

April 14th.

scottharding · #**4867** Posted **Feb 26, 2013, 10:14 PM**

Thank you.

jedikermit · #**4868** Posted **Mar 5, 2013, 7:06 PM**

UTA/TRAX really should do something like this:

Dumb Ways to Die
http://youtu.be/v4A_18kf4PY

Makid · #**4869** Posted **Mar 8, 2013, 10:40 PM**

The 2012 Q4 APTA results have now been published:

http://www.apta.com/resources/statistics/Documents/Ridership/2012-q4-ridership-APTA.pdf

For Light Rail: 60.6k average daily. 14.73% increase over 2011 for the same period.
For Commuter Rail: 7.8K average daily. 14.74% increase over 2011 for the same period.
* One thing to note: Frontrunner had 158.2K riders in December 2011. Frontrunner had 331.7K riders in December of 2012.

This year we will see a further increase for Light Rail ridership as the Airport and Draper extensions come online. We will also see an increase with the Street Car (Not sure how this will be listed as it will use the S70 light rail cars).

It is possible that we will be nearing 70k average daily riders on Trax at the end of the year.

I am also amazed at the increase for Frontrunner. More than doubling ridership for the month of December. This number will most likely increase with the changes that UTA instituted in February to better match arrival and departure times with connecting trains and buses.

I put a link to the report above if anyone wants to do a comparison between other cities transit usage.

CountyLemonade · #**4870** Posted **Mar 8, 2013, 11:24 PM**

So, let's see. If FrontRunner had 331,700 riders in December, and FrontRunner operated for eighteen days in that month (since revenue service began on December 10), that averages to about 18,000 riders per day.

Wow.

(Eco)nomy_404 · #**4871** Posted **Mar 10, 2013, 5:54 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by CountyLemonade

^ The new FrontRunner schedules begin tomorrow and UTA promises that these times will work much better. Maybe that'll be a good time to give it another go.

I tried working Frontrunner back into my schedule and it works much better now that it comes every 30 min! I even tried connecting with TRAX and it works great! It takes about 1.5 hrs each way vs 1 hr each way in the car. While it is still a longer commute, it is worth not stressing out about stupid people weaving through lanes without signals, cutting me off, riding my bumper, etc, etc. Plus it is more environmentally friendly. I have successfully used it for my commute the past two weeks!

Quote:

Originally Posted by CountyLemonade

So, let's see. If FrontRunner had 331,700 riders in December, and FrontRunner operated for eighteen days in that month (since revenue service began on December 10), that averages to about 18,000 riders per day.

Wow.

And TRAX reached 60,600 average daily riders in Dec vs Denver`s 65,300. Watch our Denver, we`re getting close!

I bet we will overtake Denver next quarter after the Airport line opens in April.

http://www.apta.com/resources/statistics/Documents/Ridership/2012-q4-ridership-APTA.pdf

slc801 · #**4872** Posted **Mar 10, 2013, 9:31 PM**

Who was it that did the quarterly APTA graphs? I really liked them. I tried looking for them and couldn't find it at all. Whoever it was, I really enjoyed looking at them and if you can bring them back, I'd appreciate it.

CastleScott · #**4873** Posted **Mar 10, 2013, 10:14 PM**

Quote:

Let's call a spade a spade: Utahns are crappy drivers.

I'm sure they are however I believe Denver drivers are worse!! Its a running joke around here that you can get a Colorado Drivers License out of a CrackerJacks box!!!

UtahProjects · #**4874** Posted **Mar 11, 2013, 2:05 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by (Eco)nomy_404

I tried working Frontrunner back into my schedule and it works much better now that it comes every 30 min! I even tried connecting with TRAX and it works great! It takes about 1.5 hrs each way vs 1 hr each way in the car. While it is still a longer commute, it is worth not stressing out about stupid people weaving through lanes without signals, cutting me off, riding my bumper, etc, etc. Plus it is more environmentally friendly. I have successfully used it for my commute the past two weeks!

And TRAX reached 60,600 average daily riders in Dec vs Denver`s 65,300. Watch our Denver, we`re getting close!

I bet we will overtake Denver next quarter after the Airport line opens in April.

http://www.apta.com/resources/statistics/Documents/Ridership/2012-q4-ridership-APTA.pdf

Though Denver has new rail underway as well, and some opening soon - http://www.rtd-fastracks.com/wc_1

Makid · #**4875** Posted **Mar 11, 2013, 3:20 AM**

I think that the current ridership for Trax is great considering the track mileage as well as the population level that it serves.

I do think that we will see a good size jump when the airport extension opens. This will increase usage of both Trax and Frontrunner.

I also hope that Frontrunner is closer to 18,000 daily riders. That would be a great increase.

CountyLemonade · #**4876** Posted **Mar 11, 2013, 4:00 AM**

Keep in mind that next quarter we'll see a much more accurate daily average for FrontRunner ridership (as the Provo extension opened right toward the end of Q4), and the quarter after that for the airport TRAX extension. That's why you see FrontRunner ridership increase only by 1,800 between Q3 and Q4.

I find it remarkable that we have heaps more rail than Denver. Even if they're probably going to catch up to us soon, we got there first. A city half Denver's size. A major disadvantage, though, is that Denver has a much better schedule for its light rail than does Salt Lake. Even more unfortunate is that we used to have schedules (for both light rail and buses) that rivaled Denver. One can only hope we'll be back to that level someday.

bob rulz · #**4877** Posted **Mar 11, 2013, 8:14 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Makid

I think that the current ridership for Trax is great considering the track mileage as well as the population level that it serves.

I do think that we will see a good size jump when the airport extension opens. This will increase usage of both Trax and Frontrunner.

I also hope that Frontrunner is closer to 18,000 daily riders. That would be a great increase.

Indeed. All of the metro areas with light rail systems that average more riders are larger or much larger than Salt Lake (Portland is the only one that isn't a lot larger) and even if you look at the ones just after Salt Lake, Sacramento is the only metro area around the same size that really comes close to Salt Lake City.

Makid · #**4878** Posted **Mar 11, 2013, 12:37 PM**

The Salt Lake area does have more rail when counting Frontrunner. But if you compare just Light Rail track mileage, we are nearly even currently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_light_rail_systems_by_ridership

This shows that we are ahead of the Denver area by .3 miles or .8 kilometers.

I know that built environment plays into usage a bit but to think that Denver with roughly the same light rail track mileage, has only just over 4,000 daily riders more than we do.

Now, the Denver area does have more light rail coming online in the next 10 years than the Salt Lake area. So the gap between riders may tip only to Salt Lake for the short term.

Someone correct me if I am wrong but I think that once Denver has all of their light rail built, they are projecting to be near 100K riders daily. I don't know if this number is strictly light rail or if it also includes commuter rail as well.

I think that the 2015 projections for UTA rail ridership (Trax and Frontrunner) is close to 80K daily riders.

One thing I do like on the Wiki list is that we are more than 8,000 riders ahead of St. Louis yet, they have more than 10 Miles of extra track.

I do hope that no one takes this as a city/city competition. I was just trying to show that the Salt Lake area does on average better light rail ridership than larger cities with equal or near equal amounts of light rail track.

Makid · #**4879** Posted **Mar 11, 2013, 4:09 PM**

Transit ridership is 2nd highest since 1957

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/55986137-78/ridership-percent-trax-transit.html.csp

Quote:

The nation’s mass transits systems last year enjoyed their second-highest ridership since 1957 — with ridership locally on the Utah Transit Authority up by 3 percent as several new TRAX lines were in operation during the year.

Americans took 10.5 billion trips on mass transit last year, up by 154 million trips over 2011, according to data released Monday by the American Public Transportation Association.

Quote:

In Utah, ridership on UTA increased from 41.6 million trips in 2011 to 42.8 million in 2012 — a 3 percent increase, or double the national average increase of 1.5 percent.

The UTA reported that ridership on TRAX and FrontRunner were each up by an identical 14.7 percent. But bus ridership was down by 6.1 percent, as many bus routes were eliminated to connect into new TRAX lines. Its van pool ridership was up by 2.1 percent, and demand-respond bus ridership for the disabled was up by 20.1 percent.

That came during the first full year of operation of the new West Valley City and South Jordan extensions to TRAX. Also, the FrontRunner extension between Salt Lake City and Provo opened in December.

Several more expansions are scheduled to open this year. The extension of the green line TRAX to the Salt Lake City International Airport is scheduled to open on April 14; the extension of the blue line TRAX to Draper is scheduled to open in August; and the Sugar House streetcar is scheduled to open in December.

UtahProjects · #**4880** Posted **Mar 11, 2013, 4:38 PM**

Salt Lake's rail also started later than the rest on the top 10 list, which means adoption is higher here. Though other larger metros may catch up as time goes on, Salt Lake did great by getting a jump on it. Implementing rail while an area is smaller is really beneficial for getting new developments, businesses, arenas, etc. to be built around mass transit, instead of the other way around, which is more difficult and costly. Provo and Ogden metros should take note now to get started with light rail.