This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
There always will be victims of progress, and some commuters from South Jordan are feeling the growing pains of Utah Transit Authority and the new TRAX service between Daybreak and the University of Utah.
Some are grumbling that, in the effort to attract more mass-transit users and cut down on car emissions, UTA's recent decisions have caused just the opposite effect — more folks from the southwest end of the valley will drive their cars to work in Salt Lake City.
Critics in South Jordan say the express bus service, route 327, from their area to downtown Salt Lake worked perfectly and usually had a ridership of 80- to 90-percent capacity. The express route had enough runs in the morning and evening hours that it accommodated both the eight-hour workers and the 10-hour-workers.
Then, the new Daybreak TRAX line opened and 327 was scrapped.
UTA spokesman Jerry Carpenter says administrators believed the new TRAX line from the southwest section of the county into downtown would adequately cover the needs of the riders who had been taking the 327 express bus route. But after a series of public meetings, it was clear many were not satisfied. So UTA began a new bus route, the 527, that did not go downtown but provided a shuttle from areas in the southwest quadrant to TRAX. He conceded, however, that some commuters decided they would rather drive their cars all the way into downtown Salt Lake than shuttle to TRAX.
The biggest problem is that the new 527 shuttle has only two runs in the morning and two in the evening. The morning runs are 5:30 and 6 a.m. The evening runs are 6:30 and 7 p.m. That, says commuter Tom Holbrook, makes it impractical for most people going to work. So they just take their cars.
Carpenter says the routes are continuously evaluated, and the routes and times could be altered.
But Holbrook says with the impractical hours on the 527 runs, he is alone on the bus most days. He worries the lack of ridership will give UTA an excuse to discontinue that 527 service, and he, like some of his neighbors before him, will succumb to the temptation to drive all the way.
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Party struggles continue • The Utah Republican Party continues to have heartburn over two of its top state officers and their libertarian political tendencies.
The latest dust-up is state GOP Vice Chairman Lowell Nelson's attendance last weekend at the Liberty Political Action Conference in Reno, Nev.
The conference is sponsored by the Campaign for Liberty, a political action committee not officially associated with the GOP but devoted to conservative principles aligned with the Libertarian Party
The conference was to feature Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, a longtime advocate of Libertarian ideas, and Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, two of the latest tea-party heroes.
Some Republicans complain that the organization is a PAC dedicated to a certain agenda, not necessarily a Republican one, and party officers should be careful about supporting PACs at the expense of raising funds and support for the opposing party itself.
Nelson is listed as the interim Utah coordinator for the Campaign for Liberty.
Nelson and state GOP Secretary Drew Chamberlain were criticized recently by party faithful for appearing on a radio program hosted by Democratic State Chairman Jim Dabakis and advocating the elimination of Medicaid, Social Security and public education.
They survived a sanction movement against them, but were told to be careful not to use their party positions when espousing personal opinions that may run counter to the party platform.