I used to take the UTA bus Route 500 to the North Temple FrontRunner station and back. This is the only UTA bus that serves the Capitol Hill area.
In April 2018 UTA made a schedule change that resulted in commuters either having to walk down to North Temple to catch connecting buses or start driving. This change affected people catching the northbound FrontRunner as well as people catching connecting buses at 300 West.
This is a sample of what UTA expects from its customers: I am expected to either waste 30 minutes waiting for the northbound FrontRunner in the morning, or waste 30 minutes in the evening waiting for Route 500. UTA has scheduled the 500 in the morning to arrive at the North Temple station exactly at the time (7:03 a.m.) the northbound FrontRunner is scheduled to leave the North Temple Station; similarly, the southbound FrontRunner arrives (5 p.m.) at North Temple station one minute after the Route 500 (4:49 p.m.) bus has left in the evening.
It used to be that the bus arrived five minutes before the train departed and the train arrived three minutes before the evening bus left — still not the best of schedules, but it worked well in the morning and some of the time in the evening.
Walking to catch buses works in summer but not in winter. Why run a bus route that does not serve the residents in that area? Who profits from this?
Mahika Weerasekare, Salt Lake City