Reader comments
FrontRunner South line work to begin

I was in attendance at this event. From what was said this project will open at the end of 2011 or in 2012. They also asked for a faster schedule on the opening date because I-15 will be under construction.

This is great!!!

Their deceptions include: inflating claims of future South FrontRunner ridership to 20,000, low-balling the cost of this extension in the NorthFrontrunner documents, and misrepresenting the current "success" of the NorthFrontrunner.

In reverse order:

NorthFR started out with nearly the exact "New" ridership predicted in its New Starts document, ~6,000 boardings at opening. But that document noted that only half of these would actually be new trips not sucked out of UTA's fullest express buses or vanpools. That's 3,000 NewRiders/boardings, not bribed or bought.
UTA is busy "Building" ridership by GIVING IT AWAY!
The Deceit-Masters "Build" ridership with huge discount and free-pass programs.
Thousands of government and business employees and university students get free/highly-discounted passes. (The LEGISLATURE's AUDIT of UTA was critical of this method of "building" TRAX ridership-Success", p.73)).

"The General Manager shall not disregard the legislative mandate... to make the transit system self-supporting"!
They spit in legislator's eyes.

In their environmental documents, UTA said the South-extension would cost less, citing "economies of scale". Even factoring inflation, SouthFR is much costlier.

If UTA had done FTA-NewStarts analysis, SouthFR prediction would be about 6,500 NewRiders, not bribed/borrowed. With your taxes, they'l buy this "Success", too.

UTA kingpins are Deceit-Masters
MichaelPackard

Michael,

You're a bitter, bitter man. How do you propose UTA walk the fine line between wanting to charge people for the service and also get people off the roads? To be self-supporting, you'd need to charge about $20 for a bus ride. But what would that do for ridership?

There's a reason no private companies are lining up to run a large scale transit system in SLC. It cannot pay for itself. If it could, the legislature would've already disbanded UTA and brought private ownership in.

About the legislative audit: explain to me how UTA is to fulfill the contradictory requirements contained therein, such as making the system self-supporting and also making it more accessible to the disabled and low income folks? That document was more political than analytical. They were looking for a reason to absorb UTA into UDOT. They don't have one yet. It would be a disaster.

But they'll keep looking....

Anyway, I guess you're entitled to be one of the bitter few standing by while the public votes themselves repeated tax increases to pay for huge transit projects they want right now.

you say UTA gives rides away to students, if you remember paying those outrageous student fee's each semester then you know that it is anything but giving it away.

Don't be such a hater, Every student in Utah County that I have talked to is so excited about front runner, and with gas the way it is, this is really the most affordable way to go home, and commute.

Well, duh!
Of course some students will enjoy getting rides on
a billion-dollar train for pennies on the dollar of actual cost.

The legislative audit noted on page 67--- (Fig. 5.3 "Large Differences are Observed in subsidies Granted to Fare Types")--- that Ed Pass users paid the smallest share of their ride costs af all regular transit riders. Ed-Pass fares were subsidized 92%. And, that was before the much-higher costs of FrontRunner added in.

The public and other non-transit using students are paying most of your costs.

Michael T. Packard

You didn�t answer my arguments.

How deftly you glide over the horrendous subsidy levels transit requires as you suggest private enterprise can�t do it FOR PROFIT!
In Long Range plans at MAG / WFRC, transit user-fares contribute ~10% of $20+ billion in projected UTA expenditures.

I am bitter about the fraud UTA and shills used to get billions for trains. UTA fooled Utah with the drumbeat claiming 58,000 TRAX riders before November-2006. But, UTA withheld their knowledge of problematical TRAX counts. A few weeks after gaining those billion$, UTA implemented new counting procedures that revealed there had only been 39,000 riders.

Did UTA ask for a do-over on their misrepresented election? No!

Your comments reveal UTA�s Groupthink, anti-audit strategy. You would call the kettle black!

It was not the standardized audit that was wrong, noting repeatedly the untrustworthiness of UTA�s data/procedures; it was UTA�s multiple counting mistakes since 1995 and intentional mis-representation that are deplorable!

Besides TRAX, there was the massive under-calculation of bus passenger-miles, 70 to 90 million a year in 2003,4,5. This slanted FrontRunner analysis.

The AirForce recently made UTA give back $133,000 for mis-counting, over-billing vanpool rides.

Mistakes by UTA analysts are forgivable, not management misrepresentations!

Students and staff at universities are not paying a significant part of fuel surcharges.

The U of U is giving passes to FrontRunner, the same as for buses. But, to make yup for the last surcharge, the U administration dumped on car drivers by increasing the parking pass cost by 10%.

As previously noted, due to the high subsidy level of EdPasses, those who use transit at colleges and universities are seeing little of fuel surcharges actually passsed on to them.

On the other hand, most low-income riders and most handicapped riders, and cash riders all get the benison of paying the full surcharge every time UTA hikes it.

Thousands of people who get free passes to ride all UTA modes pay NONE of the surcharge. Most FrontRunner riders are CBD-yuppies who can afford to pay, but get free passes.

The worst part of this is that FrontRunner locomotives are great diesel-guzzlers that will add about $7 million a year to UTA's fuel bill, (full service).

A fair application of surcharges would require a surcharge-head tax for everyone who rides UTA, even in "free fare" zones, and especially for pass holders.

Who ever said UTA/Utah government was fair?

Michael is still here chasing windmills. It never ends for him. Always entertaining.

This is exactly the type of critical commentary that leads to NOTHING! Reading your comments is like watching a presidential debate where each candidate explains what's wrong with the ideas of the other candidates.

You seem to know what the community REALLY needs. So tell us, Oh Wise One, how should we go about planning for the future of traffic in Utah? And please don't tell me that your grand scheme is to continue expanding the highway system. Even if we were to ignore the emissions issues with gasoline motors, increasing the size of highways to meet our needs doesn't help.

So what's your opinion on what should be done in lieu of FrontRunner and TRAX projects?

I'm so happy, happy, happy that FrontRunner is finally coming to Utah Valley. There are a lot of UV residents that work downtown in a very large building owned by a very large church that will be riding FrontRunner in very large numbers.
Come on people, don't listen to the 'neigh'sayers, but support that which is good, virtues and of good report. Even if you don't believe in global warming (I don't either) we still need to be good stewards of that which we've been given, the least you can do is ride public transit, support alternative energies and stop buying oil from countries that don't like us.

.... the problem is those times are gone. The metro areas that don't adapt to expensive oil will just be left behind. Having the vast majority of Utahns spend 25% of their household income powering their three cars per home doesn't leave much personal wealth to weather an economic storm. The transit critics say: "people don't use poor quality transit enough for us to build a good quality transit system" but shoudn't this be "people won't use transit until it becomes a good quality system?"

Mr Packard:

You were wrong about TRAX and you'll be wrong again.

Michael Packard could alot better Job then John Inglish, for less than half the Salary then John Inglish and no Bonuses.

Through Mismanagement, Aggressive Elimination of the Bus Routes and Fare Increases UTA is Destroying the Bus
System.

Try reading a bit of that audit.

As the auditors noted, UTA has basically been buying ridership on TRAX with tax dollars to make it look good. In the process they are progressively violating their PRIME DIRECTIVE, to make the system self supporting. Nothing is "competetive" if you have to give it away to get people to use it.
UTA is running a transit ridership ponzi scheme.

UTA recently told you of high ridership gains from the horrible gas price rise. They forgot to mention to you, because they count on being able to con you and others, that TRAX ridership in the first quarter of 2008 was the same as the last quarter of 2004, ~39,500 riders. Look up the data at the APTA website; (you'll need a gramma request to fill in one month's data in 1st Q 2008, as UTA left that blank. Then you'd have to calculate the 3-month average.)

All this time they have spun their stories and gotten the media to regurgitate their propaganda without mentioniong that "fast growing" TRAX ridership was essentially flat for 3 and 1/2 years.

Don't be so transit-gullible; Be a better citizen and a faster Lerner!

UTA gives free passes to students then ups it's fares to help pay for expenses. Let teh students pay their own fares and keep the rates low.

Mr Packard,

You seem to have some kind of morbid bus fetish. But our public servants at the UTA are required to be more objective.

Do the math; a five car train can carry 600 seated passengers, requiring only 2 employees. That same 600 passengers would require 14 buses and 14 drivers.

Since most of the operating costs of public transit is in labor, using 2 employees easily trumps using 14.

Moreover, all across America, trains are attracting several times the ridership than buses previously did on the same corridors, thus getting many times more people off the freeways. And all this at a small fraction of the capital cost of expanding highways; with an even smaller fraction in operating costs.

Of course they are dumping the buses in favor of trains in corridors where potential ridership is large - Duh!.

Its a No brainer! Not building rail would constitute malfeasance in office! And we have all had our fill of that, haven't we. Its good to see gov't officials actually doing a good job.

And to actually impress the FEDS, who have seen enough elsewhere to be very cynical; is impressive indeed. Kudos to the UTA!

Ok all you FrontRunner cheerleaders... The FrontRunner results are in for Davis County. I dare you to read them. Just go to UDOT's website, find the traffic count page, look at position 0135 (Lagoon), check traffic counts for March and May of 08 (FrontRunner opened in April) and SURPRISE! traffic INCREASED by 153 cars per day. 700 million dollars down the toilet! It is hard to argue with the facts. The same facts prove that TrAX failed.
Utah taxpayers are getting tired of paying for your toy train rides. The actual cost of Bus is $2.40, TrAX $4.00 and FrontRunner a whopping $18.50 DO THE MATH. continue..

When we spend one billion dollars on the Provo FrontRunner it will do NOTHING to relieve congestion. We have proven this fact here in Davis county. Stop rail construction NOW!
You say what is the solution? I will tell you, "do what works". Build more roads! I will prove it to you. We have the perfect experiment here in Davis. In this corner we have FrontRunner weighing in at 700 million dollars and the other corner Legacy Highway at 700 million. FrontRunner throws it's best shot...ohhh no change in congestion, ouch. Legacy opens in 2 weeks- TKO!