Transit in the valley needs to copy the pattern established all over our bigger cities. Force the cost of downtown parking so high that the folks from Draper, Daybreak and the high priced enclaves in Davis County will pay far more than the price of a current transit ticket to avoid needing to drive to work. And then hike fares accordingly.
The Red Line and the Blue Line during every rush hour are taken with commuting fat cats, spread all over sparse seating, to the extent that any of the folks from the lower income neighborhoods further north are lucky to even find standing room by the time that their turn comes, and even though we pay the same price for our fare. Please realize that UTA designed the system exactly this way to get necessary political support back in 2002.
Think not? Try riding UTA in for any downtown game day, or especially to see the holiday lights. Your six person family from any place north of Fashion Place has already lost out to how many hundreds of others from the Mormon Hinterlands down south!
Call it needs based government pricing. Or whatever. But there is exactly a small slice of Salt Lake County down at the heavily Republican-controlled south end which is richly rewarded by great transit service. North and west county, however, is folks who need the services we all pay for, can’t really afford to drive, and can’t afford at all to go UTA, since it doesn’t go at all where they need to go to.
So why don’t we try to design a transit system where we all share the costs equally?
Darrell Prows, Murray