Reader comments
Utah Housing helping workers commute

The only way even a small percentage will ride UTA is if it is FREE! Most of these 55 pass holders won't ride it.

Now UTA is trying to inflate FrontRunner ridership with the free-pass gimmick. But, FrontRunner costs many times more per passenger-mile.

Transit is not flexible, timely, available, or responsive enough to begin to compete with cars, even at $4 a gallon.

NEWS FLASH: Despite propaganda from UTA/APTA, only a few percent of trips that people have stopped making by car, switched to transit. See the "antiplanner blog" of Mr. Randall O'Toole.

UTA pumped TRAX ridership with about 70,000 free passes at the U of U , the University Hospital and other health businesses there, for government--church--and business users downtown, and free fare zones. There are also about 130,000 more--mostly free-- bus-pass holders at other colleges/ universities.

The RUDAT report for West Valley City in 1997, by the American Institute of Architects said it something like this. Transit is not a feasible or reasonable alternative, to the car, for 95% of us.



Most will pay for "free" passes with hundreds of hours of extra travel time each year. See the Census.

TRANSIT IS A TIME KILLER.

Running up the cost of transit....

About 17 employees used to ride in UTA supplied vans. Now some of those will switch to more expensive modes: bus, TRAX, FrontRunner. The cost structure has gone from most economical to more expensive. It is likely that executives/yuppies will get massively subsidized train rides; that has been the past experience with commuter train riders.

Bus and TRAX cost several times more per passenger mile than vans.

Frontrunner costs over ten times more per passenger mile than vans. (See the legislative UTA audit, Chapter 5).

When all costs are included, FrontRunner will need the most subsidy while vanpools need the least. FrontRunner has the lowest Farebox revenue as a percentage of TOTAL COSTS; Vanpools have the highest. (Figure 5.2: Subsidy Levels by Type of Service, page 65; also see page 61 for comments on Commuter Rail high costs),(FTA's 5309 New Starts Criteria analysis for North FrontRunner has more build/operating cost per mile data).

Pass programs like this allow UTA to mix in new high cost passes for their newest rail boondoggles with passes for the lower cost modes to hide the exorbitant high costs of big trains.

It helps them build their empire.