Salt Lake Transit News Thread - Page 322

StevenF · #**6421** Posted **Jun 16, 2015, 7:36 PM**

Quote:

Let the critique begin!

Were's the QR code to scan? Gosh, what time does UTA live in?

Please read that with a bit of sarcasm.

Hatman · #**6422** Posted **Jun 16, 2015, 9:27 PM**

Quote:

When I first looked at that I thought that was someone's 'wishful thinking' map. I had no idea it's UTA's official new map. Its.... minimal, it's clean, it is easy to read.

I guess I am thankful for the new map - it removes a lot of the ugliness and confusion of the last one - but it doesn't add anything either. I'm sort of underwhelmed, but mostly I'm impressed that UTA has actually followed through and has a new clean map.
So well done, I guess.

I like that the free-fare zone is back. I'm glad they don't show every curve in the line anymore. The university line looks nothing like its geographic counterpart, but it conveys all I need to know. I like that each station is equidistant from the others. I would like the station names to be a bit bigger or bolder so that they can be seen from a distance (Station names are the one reason people will be looking at a map like this!), but at least each station name is next to the actual station (no leader-lines!)

Suggestions: The note on the Pleasant View FrontRuner station (about limited service to the station) is very important. There needs to be some sort of note there.
Also, even though this is a rail map, I would think that a 'frequent service' map would be better. This map would include BRT routes with a thin black line and all other 15-minute frequency buses with a thin gray line. No stations needed (except for end destinations), just the route number in small letters or numbers spaced out along the line so people can easily see the connections.
Dang, now that I've suggested this, It's probably my job to Photoshop it into reality.

SLCdude · #**6423** Posted **Jun 16, 2015, 10:54 PM**

I just rode TRAX. These maps are already on trains!

I share Hatman's sentiments. Here's some beefs:

I think a slightly-darker green would be better. This green is too Shrek

. Maybe it reads better for colorblind people this way though.

I don't like the what the purple (FrontRunner) line does at Murray Central. It's too distracting because it's complex. I think there should be a rail-line's-width space between FrontRunner and the blue line, and the connection symbol could be stretched a tiny bit to meet the purple line. Then the purple line would turn only once there rather than three times.

brankrom · #**6424** Posted **Jun 17, 2015, 3:43 PM**

I like the new map, but I haven't noticed it on the trains yet I'll look this afternoon. I was on a green line today and was on one of the blue seat refurbished cars. The previous maps were so small I stopped noticing them. A liner map over the seats like in LA and Chicago would be nice too.

With the resolution on my monitor I briefly thought Greektown was Ghosttown... appropriate because of well... it's at the Gateway... Get it? Gateway== ghost town...

Current BRT and future streetcar and BRT expansions should be on the map too.
MUNI and BART in the Bay Area put future projects on all their maps. It keeps people thinking about service improments.

jedikermit · #**6425** Posted **Jun 17, 2015, 4:14 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by SLCdude

I think a slightly-darker green would be better. This green is too Shrek

.

I agree, although I find solace in thinking of it as Kermit green.

Conversely, I think the blue line is too dark, although it may look better on the printed maps.

In any case, this is so much better than what UTA's had before, I like it. Hopefully each revision will get a little better.

Hatman · #**6426** Posted **Jun 17, 2015, 5:18 PM**

I saw it on TRAX today. It doesn't look out of place - in fact, it seems to fit right in on the S-70 cars. I still wish the station names were bigger, but otherwise it fits in well with the clean 'no-frills' interior of the newer cars. In that context, it fits.
It will be interesting to see if the make any additions to it for the printed schedules version.

Future Mayor · #**6427** Posted **Jun 17, 2015, 9:36 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hatman

I like your math. I hope you are some sort of time traveler come back from the future to provide us with hope in our transit system. By which I mean, I hope everything you said happens!

Assuming that the Provo-Orem BRT is built on schedule and is the roaring success we all know it will be, what would be the next immediate steps? I know there has been a lot of planning done for a south Davis-SLC line, and State Street is mentioned often - in both Utah and Salt Lake Counties. A Weber State-Ogden FrontRunner route has also been mentioned. And then there's the Taylorsville project. 5600 West BRT would be paid for by the Mountain View Corridor project. What other BRT projects would be immediately ready to go for a Frontlines-style BRT mega-build-out?

Put 4500/4700 S on your list.

Taylorsville City, and Murray and I believe WVC, have completed a study for BRT running E/W through the area, and the route that made sense was 4500/4700 S. It would initially take riders to Murray north Trax, and I believe they said to 5600 W.

I wish UTA would complete the dedicated lanes on the Maxx line on 3500 S. It would be so much better to show as a BRT example if it was an actual BRT.

Hatman · #**6428** Posted **Jun 17, 2015, 9:51 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Future Mayor

I wish UTA would complete the dedicated lanes on the Maxx line on 3500 S. It would be so much better to show as a BRT example if it was an actual BRT.

Yeah, what ever happened with the original MAX line? It seems like UTA just wanted to do the branding and never took seriously the dedicated lanes, raised platforms, or any of the other BRT bare necessities. Why is that? did they not want to spend money on the Magna route? Is it just a poor route for demonstrating the ridership growth potential of BRT? Would UDOT not sell UTA the right-of-way for the dedicated lanes? Or did UTA expect to have the Provo-Orem line running a lot sooner? (I remember hearing things when I first moved to Utah back in 2009 that the BRT would open at the same time as FrontRunner.)

If I were forced to guess, I'd say that the Magna route might have just been a proof of concept for UTA, the same way that the Pleasant View station for FrontRunner was intended to prove whether or not UTA could share tracks with freight trains up to Brigham City. So far they've shown that they can't, and so they are pursuing the purchase of Right-of-Way along the freight tracks to lay their own track to Brigham City (and hopefully one day beyond...). The original Max line looks like a bad hybrid of BRT and 'Enhanced Bus' (also called 'Bus Plus', where many of the BRT features are implemented without the dedicated lanes). It's basically nothing more than a test track to collect data for UTA. They've proven that 'Bus Plus' isn't the most cost effective choice for increasing ridership, and that BRT lanes do have a time-savings potential. And now that the test track has yielded its results, they are ready to try the real thing in Provo-Orem.
Again, just my hypothesis. And even if I'm right, I hope they would put a little thought into upgrading their Magna 'test track' into a full fledged BRT.

AllOutOfBubbleGum · #**6429** Posted **Jun 17, 2015, 9:54 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by SLCdude

I just rode TRAX. These maps are already on trains!

I share Hatman's sentiments. Here's some beefs:

I think a slightly-darker green would be better. This green is too Shrek

. Maybe it reads better for colorblind people this way though.

I don't like the what the purple (FrontRunner) line does at Murray Central. It's too distracting because it's complex. I think there should be a rail-line's-width space between FrontRunner and the blue line, and the connection symbol could be stretched a tiny bit to meet the purple line. Then the purple line would turn only once there rather than three times.

The new look reminds me of this

the best Metro in the world

I know it might look crazy but once you get on the thing and need to know where to go after your on, it was so easy to find the stop you needed.

Future Mayor · #**6430** Posted **Jun 17, 2015, 9:57 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hatman

Yeah, what ever happened with the original MAX line? It seems like UTA just wanted to do the branding and never took seriously the dedicated lanes, raised platforms, or any of the other BRT bare necessities. Why is that? did they not want to spend money on the Magna route? Is it just a poor route for demonstrating the ridership growth potential of BRT? Would UDOT not sell UTA the right-of-way for the dedicated lanes? Or did UTA expect to have the Provo-Orem line running a lot sooner? (I remember hearing things when I first moved to Utah back in 2009 that the BRT would open at the same time as FrontRunner.)

If I were forced to guess, I'd say that the Magna route might have just been a proof of concept for UTA, the same way that the Pleasant View station for FrontRunner was intended to prove whether or not UTA could share tracks with freight trains up to Brigham City. So far they've shown that they can't, and so they are pursuing the purchase of Right-of-Way along the freight tracks to lay their own track to Brigham City (and hopefully one day beyond...). The original Max line looks like a bad hybrid of BRT and 'Enhanced Bus' (also called 'Bus Plus', where many of the BRT features are implemented without the dedicated lanes). It's basically nothing more than a test track to collect data for UTA. They've proven that 'Bus Plus' isn't the most cost effective choice for increasing ridership, and that BRT lanes do have a time-savings potential. And now that the test track has yielded its results, they are ready to try the real thing in Provo-Orem.
Again, just my hypothesis. And even if I'm right, I hope they would put a little thought into upgrading their Magna 'test track' into a full fledged BRT.

The part that bothers me is that a large portion of Max does have dedicated lanes, in the middle of the line, but each end is just, as you called it "Bus Plus"

Hatman · #**6431** Posted **Jun 18, 2015, 3:31 PM**

The newest numbers from the Provo-Orem BRT put it at 51% exclusive lanes. This was done because the minimum percentage of exclusive lanes required to get federal funding for a BRT system is 50%. They squeezed out the last percent by putting an exclusive lane on the north side 1860S, by the Novel campus on that clock-wise running loop at the south end. I thought at least it was cool that the BRT will have both center and side exclusive lanes.
Any higher percentage of exclusive lanes you may have seen in earlier proposals include the phase II of this project, which would add exclusive lanes around the UVU campus.
Still, even with nearly half of the Provo-Orem BRT running in mixed traffic (though still with signal priority), ridership is expected to exceed the goal of 13,000 rides per day. That is a lot of rides - almost as much as FrontRunner, and for less than 1/10 of the cost ($150 million for BRT and at least $1.5 Billion for both north and south FrontRunner).
Also, rumors are that UTA is pretty serious about using the electric buses they tested out. That is encouraging, because it makes the bus so much more pleasant to ride. It's quite, so you don't have to talk over the engine noise, and the back of the bus isn't scorching hot from the engine. It's smooth and has amazingly quick acceleration, which will really matter during rush hour when buses will run on a 5 minute frequency (yes, it's official: 5 minutes! You hear that, TRAX?). And of course there is that fact that electric vehicles are super cool, which fits UTA's goals fine; their stated goal is to make the Provo-Orem route an 'example to the nation,' so that when people talk about BRT or propose it in their communities, they don't talk about Cleveland or LA, they talk about Provo.
So even though Provo-Orem will only have the exclusive lanes for half its length, it will still be an amazing system.

Makid · #**6432** Posted **Jun 19, 2015, 4:23 PM**

I saw the following this morning:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=217581

What does everyone think? Would this work here?

Overall, this would be a cheap way to get exclusive lanes in places and wouldn't need the barriers for BRT. In and around downtown SLC, they could use the lanes for taxis as well.

I think that this would be a cheap way to build BRT test lines before dedicated controlled access lanes are added (along State Street, Highland Drive, etc). Those routes already selected to receive exclusive controlled lanes in the next 2 years (5600 West, Orem/Provo) could continue and should continue as selected.

I know that UDOT may not fully like the idea but imagine having a dedicated bus lane on all 6/7 lane roads. They could use the inside lanes and the middle where available could still be used for left turns as well as station areas. This would reduce the need for riders to cross all lanes of traffic to catch a bus. Just go to the middle at the designated crosswalks to get to the stations.

I just think that with this idea, we could get 2-3 times the BRT routes for the same cost. This would definitely increase ridership as well as reduce travel time for riders. Lastly, it would give a bigger incentive to drivers to use transit for their commutes.

Makid · #**6433** Posted **Jun 22, 2015, 4:33 PM**

APTA has released the Q1 ridership numbers:

http://www.apta.com/resources/statistics/Documents/Ridership/2015-q1-ridership-APTA.pdf

Overall, UTA is #9 for Light Rail ridership and #8 for Commuter Rail.

For the breakdown of the numbers:

Frontrunner: 15.9K average daily riders. 3.62% increase over Q1 2014.
Trax: 64.9K average daily riders. -1.26% decrease over Q1 2014
Bus: 74.5K average daily riders. 5.58% increase over Q1 2014.

Total: 164.5K average daily UTA riders/users. 2.32% increase over Q1 2014.

These numbers are quite shocking. The first is that Frontrunner is still gaining ridership at a fairly quick pace. Nearly 4% year over year growth is great.

Trax losing 1.26% ridership is probably due to FanX being in Q1 2014 and Q2 2015. The total ridership difference between 2015 and 2014 was approximately 61K riders. FanX in 2014 was estimated to have induced nearly 100K transit trips. So while Trax was down year over year, we do see how large events (conventions) do play into ridership.

Buses gaining 5.58% was the biggest shock. Transit ridership is generally at its highest in Q4. By this we look at Q4 2014 bus ridership and it was at 72.1K daily. 2015 is starting off at 74.5K daily. -- Does anyone know roughly how much of this could be due to the transit fare change (distance based) on the few routes in Provo?

It will be fun to watch the bus ridership numbers as we increase bus service on the August change day. Increasing 15 minute frequencies along multiple high ridership routes should induce more riders.

Total ridership - Q4 2014 was 166.0K daily. Q1 2015 is starting at 164.5 daily. This does bode well for further ridership increases the rest of the year.

Does anyone have any thoughts on if UTA will reach it's ridership goal of "Doubling transit ridership by the end of 2019 from the numbers at the end of 2013 (I think that is the year)?"

For reference those numbers were and would need to be:

Frontrunner: 2013 - 14.7K daily -- 2019 - 29.4K daily
Trax: 2013 - 68.1K daily -- 2019 - 136.2K daily
Bus: 2013 - 72.2K daily -- 2019 - 144.4K daily
Total: 2013 - 163.4K daily -- 2019 - 326.8K daily

Frontrunner should be able to hit the level if the studies are true about increased frequency (15m peak and 30m off peak). Studies had it estimated at 36+K daily.

Bus is on it's way with the increase in Q1 and the planned BRT lines as well as the planned additional hours and frequency upgrades happening on the August change day.
-Orem/Provo and 5600 West should account for roughly 30K to 40K ridership increase by 2019. Other changes ridership should amount for roughly 50K - 80K ridership depending on if UTA is able to see its bonding capacity increase by 2017 (planned tax increase wouldn't go for additional planned BRT lines until 2018 I think at the earliest).

Trax, should see some increase due to the bus and Frontrunner increase.

I still waiver a bit on if the goal is in fact plausible to hit. To fully hit it though, ridership would need to be increasing at more than double if not triple the increases we are seeing.

Now, with that said, I do think it is possible if everything works as projected. The biggest aspect of this would be distance based fares. Most of that depends on the fare cap outside of Frontrunner and the scale. If it is $0.10 to $0.25 per mile, I think ridership will see a large jump as many more people will use transit for shorter trips.

I think we will have a better idea if the goal is plausible come Q4 of 2015. With this: Did the Tax increase happen this year? Did the additional hours/frequency of the few lines continue the increase in bus ridership?

These 2 questions will determine a lot on if the goal is reached by the end of 2019 or not.

Hatman · #**6434** Posted **Jun 22, 2015, 11:10 PM**

The red bus lanes are pretty neat. I think, though, that they are better used for shorter segments between intersections. Re-arranging the intersections is the trickiest part of adding in any lane, for general traffic or for buses. The lanes themselves are relatively easy to design. It also seems like UDOT, while willing to work with UTA, has no real interest in working for UTA by building bus lanes for them. A UDOT owned bus-lane could be used by all kinds of buses and HOV vehicles, and could be that much more useful than a UTA-exclusive lane.

And it's always cool to see our ridership numbers, and to see us compare so favorably to cities much larger in size.

ajiuO · #**6435** Posted **Jun 23, 2015, 12:09 AM**

Did Utah run out of 6 digit plate combinations? I've been seeing these every once in a while.

jedikermit · #**6436** Posted **Jun 23, 2015, 12:24 AM**

^^^

They've had 7-digit plates available for several years now. Usually see them on personalized plates, but they do show up now and then on "regular" ones.

ajiuO · #**6437** Posted **Jun 23, 2015, 1:26 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by jedikermit

^^^

They've had 7-digit plates available for several years now. Usually see them on personalized plates, but they do show up now and then on "regular" ones.

Yeah.. I knew that they were available on personalized plates... I just didn't know about the randomized plates... That would be really cool to randomly get one.

Neuroguy · #**6438** Posted **Jun 23, 2015, 2:17 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by ajiuO

Did Utah run out of 6 digit plate combinations? I've been seeing these every once in a while.

I think this is probably a personalized plate. As in 0-60 in 5

i-215 · #**6439** Posted **Jun 23, 2015, 8:08 PM**

The DMV is not issuing 7-digit plates. That's a personalized one. Too bad, as I like the California-style 9AAA000 combination and would love to see that here.

They changed the 1990s 6-digit form (000 AAA and 999 ZZZ) to a new mixed one (A99 9AA and Z00 0ZZ) in 2007. The new combination will buy us another 10-15 years of letter combos.

That said, I find the new skier plate terribly ugly, imo. I wish we could get a plain white plate again.

Makid · #**6440** Posted **Jun 24, 2015, 4:43 PM**

I saw this today and can't remember it being discussed before here or anywhere else:

http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/passenger/salt-lake-city-success.html

Quote:

UTA will once again offer FAREPAY discounts of up to 20% on TRAX and FrontRunner, and will add a new 40% FAREPAY discount for bus riders. UTA will also offer its popular $10 Group Pass, which allows up to four people to make a round trip on buses, TRAX and FrontRunner between 8:30 a.m. and midnight on the day of purchase. Both the FAREPAY promotion and the Group Pass special pricing will begin July 1 and run through Dec. 31. These fare promotions, UTA said, are designed to thank riders for 45 years of support and encourage them to take advantage of UTA’s new summer holiday schedule, as the agency now offers service on many holidays including Independence Day, Pioneer Day and Labor Day.

This is good news that the Farepay discounts are continuing for Trax and Frontrunner but wow, they are expanding the bus service discount from 20% to 40%. This is big news and may further increase bus ridership.

If some of the projections I have read are correct about fares, this could potentially increase ridership by 30% - 50% on buses. The problem is that no one is talking about it. I think if people were discussing this, we could see a very large jump for Q2 - Q4 for ridership.

Lastly, I just wanted to point out that UTA will be offering service on holidays this year. Hopefully this continues going forward as there are many people who need UTA on holidays. Sure, it may be scaled back service but even scaled back service is better than no service.