The Taylorsville residents, both blind, were among hundreds of county residents who confronted Utah Transit Authority representatives Monday afternoon during an open house at the Salt Lake City Main Library, demanding to know how the changes will affect them.

It was the fourth such open house in a series of 10 and by far the most contentious, UTA officials acknowledged. "People are hungry for information," said Joe Olsen, a UTA analyst and statistician and former bus driver.

The No. 1 question: How will it affect me?

The redesign is based on routes that run every 15 to 30 minutes and fast service from the suburbs to downtown Salt Lake City. It's planned as an urban mass transit system focusing on better service for those who regularly use buses most and getting more suburbanites on buses by limiting the number of stops.

UTA's current 117 bus routes will be trimmed to 57 to eliminate redundancies, officials said. The goal is to increase Salt Lake County ridership, now at 57,000 on an average weekday, by 12 percent during the next three years.

By the end of Monday's 2 1/2 -hour open house, UTA had received more than 200 comments, with many people taking home forms to fill out later.

While the open house was scheduled to start at 4:30 p.m., by 4 p.m. more than 100 people were lined up to register and view an explanatory video. From there, attendees went from exhibit to exhibit to talk - sometimes nearly forehead-to-forehead - with the UTA planners who have been working on the redesign for five years.

The reticent didn't get immediate attention. "It seems like mass chaos," said Sugar House resident Linda Lindstrom, a Veterans Administration hospital worker. She just wanted to know what was in store for her when the route changes go into effect in August.

"There aren't enough UTA people here," she said. "I can't get anybody to talk to me."

The UTA people were surrounded at their easel stands by people shouting questions about how many routes would be eliminated and why did it seem that UTA was choosing commuters over people who absolutely depend on the bus.

Virtually all of those who attended, like Smith and Bybee, said their new routes would be worse than the ones they use now, unless UTA refines the plan to accommodate them. Since announcing the plan in mid-February, UTA has received thousands of similar comments.

Bybee works as a teacher's aide at Millcreek Elementary near 3900 S. 1100 East. She already takes two buses to work, and fears the new plan will add a bus and put more distance between stops.

"I'm going to have to walk a lot farther, or get someone to drive me," she said.

Smith said he thought UTA General Manager John Inglish was too devoted to the idea of park-and-ride lots to help commuters. Trouble is, Smith said, "we don't drive."

Debbie Grizzle said she came to the hearing to represent the residents of the Terrace Apartments at 1810 S. Main. Now, the bus stops in front of the apartments, which houses elderly, frail and disabled people. The new plan would require them to travel at least two blocks to get to a bus stop.

And that, Grizzle said, could mean the difference between life and death. "They won't get their medical needs met because they don't have the strength to walk [to the new stop]," she said. "People in wheelchairs, who need oxygen, people with no limbs."

John Young, 75, said he had been riding transit since he was 5. He remembers Salt Lake City's streetcars, the electric bus on 700 East, the first beginnings of UTA. He uses the bus to get everywhere from his home near 1900 East and 2100 South - grocery shopping, getting to the Valley Fair Mall, the University of Utah, Brickyard Plaza. Under the new plan, those places would become inaccessible to him.

"The whole mentality here seems to be on commuters," he said. His comment to UTA on the plan was succinct: "I told them it sucked," he said. "I know you can't please everybody. But you don't have to be dysfunctional, either."

Keith Bartholomew, who represents Salt Lake City on the transit agency's board, thought the crowd "exciting," and said that complaints would help UTA refine its redesign.

The change is philosophical and economical, Bartholomew said, and less amenable to political pressure to base service on tax receipts. In the past, cities have demanded service roughly proportional to the amount of sales tax they generate for transit.

"What's different now is, we're trying to provide meaningful service," he said. "We need to be smarter in allocating our resources."

Sustainability is UTA's main goal, Bartholomew added. "We can't do that with empty buses."

Lawson LeGate, senior Southwest representative of the Sierra Club, said besides being smarter economically, the UTA plan could get more people out of their cars.

"The air quality in this valley is the worst in the nation," LeGate said. "It shortens our lives."

UTA says it conducted a poll that showed half of the county's residents would ride mass transit if it were convenient for them. But people also need to get over uneasiness about actually getting on a bus, LeGate said.

Rose Park resident Glenn Reeves, who uses a wheelchair, said that when he moved to Salt Lake City from Wyoming two years ago, "I didn't know how to get on the bus."

Now, he goes everywhere. "If I can do it, anybody can," he said. "I enjoy it. I've made a lot of friends on UTA."

More hearings

All are from 4:30 to 7 p.m.

* Whitmore Library, 2197 East Fort Union Boulevard (7000 South), March 13

* Riverton, 12830 S. Redwood Road, March 14

* West Valley City, 3600 Constitution Boulevard, March 15

* Murray, 5025 S. State St., March 19

* East Millcreek Library, 2266 Evergreen Ave. (3435 South), March 20

* Sandy, 10000 Centennial Parkway, March 22

* For more information about the redesign, including changes to specific routes and maps on the Web: http://www.rideuta.com/schedulesAndMaps/2007routeChanges/