This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2010, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Snow happens. And when it does, Utah Transit Authority's buses and trains can be thrown off schedule. There's no helping that.
What could be helped is UTA's effort to pass the word to customers that there are delays and how long they might be.
Monday morning, in the heavy snow, University TRAX trains were delayed. The downtown-bound train due at the Stadium Station at 9:08 a.m. didn't arrive until 9:23 a.m. The trains are supposed to come every 15 minutes, so this train was more than a little late. Yet an inquiry to a group of UTA workers on the platform — one a police officer, the other two maintenance people who were clearing snow — did not produce any useful information. One said that he had heard a rumor that there was ice on the line above the stadium, but he wasn't certain what was going on. All he knew was that there had been about three uphill trains for every one coming back the other way. Waiting passengers could see that for themselves.
Couldn't the police officer have radioed the dispatch center, found out what was going on, and passed that information to customers waiting on the platform?
That kind of information would have been useful, because there are UTA buses headed downtown from nearby stops. If a passenger knew how long a delay might be, he could decide whether to hop a bus instead of the train. But apparently to the UTA, customer ignorance is bliss.
A cell-phone call to the UTA information line brought only a busy signal. That, too, is not surprising on a snowy day.
A Tribune analysis of UTA bus and TRAX performance indicates that the trains have an astounding 99.7 percent on-time rate. Buses, which do not have dedicated rights of way and are more subject to the vagaries of traffic and road conditions, are still on schedule 86.6 percent of the time.
But the Achilles heel of the TRAX system is the linkage between trains and buses. If a TRAX passenger misses his bus connection, he can be stranded for half an hour, or longer, depending upon the route. As UTA makes plans to redesign its bus routes in conjunction with the opening of the new West Valley and Mid-Jordan TRAX lines, set for Aug. 7, making those connections click is crucial. An on-time TRAX train does a passenger no good if he watches his connecting bus drive away as the train pulls into the station.
UTA also is developing Facebook and Twitter connections to keep customers in the loop. Here's hoping that works better in real time than inquiries to UTA workers.