Instead, the Utah Transit Authority's proposed new 203 bus would drop off and pick up VA Hospital patients and employees on Foothill Boulevard, requiring a walk to a curb a couple of blocks away or across the busy arterial.

"A guy with a cane or wheelchair or walker, walking two blocks in the weather to try to get to a bus stop, it's ridiculous," said Salt Lake City resident Ray Stephens.

Now, said Stephens, patients can wait in the hospital lobby until the buses pull up out front. The new route would make them wait in the heat or cold, navigate sidewalks in the rain and snow - in short, would make life a lot more difficult for what Stephens sees as dubious ends.

"The veterans deserve the service they're getting now," he said. "I'm not expecting more service, but I don't want worse."

UTA spokesman Justin Jones said the current bus service to the VA Hospital winds all through the campus to make that one stop. Multiply that by 30 or 40 buses a day means spending a lot of money that UTA prefers to save. Instead, UTA wants to send the buses to the University of Utah's Research Park up the hill from the VA.

At the same time, he said, Route 203 "is a proposal, not a done deal."

VA and UTA officials are meeting today to discuss what would be best for patients and to explain UTA's reasoning, Jones said.

The bus route redesign now under way is the most ambitious in the mass transit agency's history. The changes are scheduled to go into effect Aug. 27. UTA has received thousands of comments on the proposal, many of them from people whose lives will be hugely affected when they no longer can take their familiar buses to familiar places for their needs. This is especially hard on elderly and disabled riders, who swamped UTA representatives at an open house last week at the City Library.

Workers who don't ride during conventional commute times also are having difficulty with the planned changes. Employees at the International Center near Salt Lake City International Airport, for example, were shocked to find out bus service would be eliminated for those destinations. UTA is meeting this week with employers and riders to determine whether the plan should be changed.

Stephens said he'd been frustrated so far in his attempts to make his views known to UTA officials, even though comments on the plan can be made by phone, on the Web and at public hearings.

Still, he said, "If we bark now, it's easier to get it fixed."