This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The Tribune's recent reporting on UTA's bonuses has triggered numerous complaints about UTA's dysfunctional service. The problem, in my experience, is poor connectivity. Most Wasatch Front residents have cars and drive to work; in fact, this is the main cause of our terrible air pollution. But if they switched to mass transit, their commute in many cases would take twice as long, or more. That's because there are only 105 bus routes serving the 1,600 square miles that UTA covers. Many commuters would have to walk a mile or more to reach a bus stop, and then endure a long wait. What's needed is a lot more bus routes and a lot more buses.
Why not replace UTA's big buses – which are often almost empty – with a large fleet of minibuses? I've seen such systems in a number of other cities I've visited. Minibuses are cheaper to buy, maintain, and run – they would certainly get more than the 4.5 mpg the UTA's big buses get. Minibuses would produce less congestion in our cities' streets. Most importantly, a large fleet of them could cover much more territory, increasing ridership.
And here's another question, this one for UTA's overpaid executives: Why haven't you thought of this?
Thomas Huckin
Salt Lake City