Eagle Mountain City Councilman on UTA Express Line to Provo

A UTA express bus line is coming to Eagle Mountain this Spring. I discussed the line here and here. I had questions concerning the cost and subsidy the bus line required, particularly since the cost to ride the bus remains pretty high.

Well, on my city councilman's website, someone asked when we were going to get an express line to Provo/Orem. Here is his reply:

The biggest factor will be the number of bus riders on the upcoming express bus route to Salt Lake City from Saratoga Springs and Eagle Mountain. If that route has a significant number of dailly riders and that bus route comes close to breaking even financially, then more bus routes will be considered. If those 2 express bus routes are not at or near capacity, then it will take a longer time for additional routes to be considered by UTA.

The second factor is funding. This new bus route was jump started with a $200k federal grant to expand bus services. If there is more transporation grant money avialable, then that would increase the likelyhood of expanded bus routes.

The third factor is the sales tax revenue. Eagle Mountain and Saratoga Springs residents voted to pay a quarter of a percnet more sales tax to subsidize the bus services to our area. If the sales taxes generated from our 2 cities makes up any shortfall that the 2 express bus routes, then we help our chances in getting additional routes.

The 4th is a bit of an unknown. There are efforts available to put all of Utah County into the UTA transportation district. There is legal wrangling about this and I don't know how much support there is county wide to join the transportation district. If we, as a county, join the UTA do join there will be expanded bus routes county-wide and that will also increase our chances of additional bus lines.

The bottom line is that we are in the in a trial/test/pilot/evaluation period to see the success of what we already have. It if works out as a positive thing and capacity and percentage of ridership his high, then we probably get more options. We will have to wait and see.

So after hundreds of thousands of federal dollars, tens of thousands of city tax dollars, plus $160 a month per person to ride the bus, there are concerns that UTA won't break even by driving two buses to Salt Lake City and back five days a week? I don't get it.

Coming Soon: UTA to Eagle Mountain

Eagle Mountain's Proposition One, of which I wrote about here, to bring EM and Saratoga Springs into the UTA taxing district, passed by healthy margins. 76.5% of EM and 66.8% of SS voters voted in favor of annexation.

I emailed a councilman and the mayor of Eagle Mountain before the election to express some concerns and questions I had about the proposition, but I did not receive a response. The week before the election, EM hosted a "meet the candidates" night, and as part of that meeting the mayor subbed for a UTA official to speak in support of the proposition. After all the candidates had given their 3 minute speech, each went to their assigned spot and met one on one with voters. I was able to talk to the mayor for a few minutes, and ask her the questions I had emailed before.

The mayor's view was that EM desperately needs mass transit, this is a great opportunity to get federal funding for it, and it won't mean a huge increase in local taxes. I asked her why these bus lines would cost so much money, and she didn't know. I asked her if there were any other alternatives to UTA for an express bus service, and she didn't know.

The city councilman I emailed posted his view on his website. It reads much the same as the mayor's view. Transportation is something that falls under government jurisdiction, EM really needs a bus service, and if we join now we can get $600,000 in federal grant money.

I had a few problems with this proposition.

First, I felt really uncomfortable with the fact that I seemed to be the only one asking the question, "is this the best we can do?", and perhaps even more uncomfortable with the fact that no one seemed able to answer it.

Second, I didn't like that one of its major selling points was that it came with "free" federal grant money.

Third, both the city councilman and the mayor dismissed the sales tax increase as minimal because Eagle Mountain currently doesn't have much in the way of retail sales establishments - meaning most residents shop in communities that already have the UTA tax. However, a quickly growing city of 25k+ residents will have shopping at some point. So it will cost taxpayers money.

Fourth, the bus fare is expected to be $160 a month. At a gas price peak of $4, it cost me about that much to drive my own car. With rapidly falling prices, it costs me substantially less. With a single car pool partner, my commute cost is cut in half. And I don't drive a special, expensive, gas saving vehicle - I drive a 2003 Toyota Corolla. It simply does not make financial sense to subsidize a bus system that costs me more to use than it does to simply drive myself.

It very well may be that that final point encapsulates my hesitation at this new UTA bus line. My personal commuting situation, coupled with a rise in gas prices, caused me to make changes in what I drove and how I drove. They were not drastic measures. They were simple actions taken to better manage my personal economy.

This UTA line would basically remove those incentives to change. And it costs substantially more - particularly to those not interested in riding a bus. Perhaps this thought line can be summed up best by an excerpt from a comment I received on my previous UTA post. The comment comes from Frank Staheli, a former city councilman whose city faced this same decision during his term:

Others could cut costs in similar manners, but most people don't look for alternative solutions, because government solutions make sluggards of nearly all of us.

That's the rub. This bus line was sold as a "something for nothing" proposition. We'll get $600k in federal money, pay next to nothing in sales tax ourselves, and Poof! we'll have a bus line. No one has to take personal responsibility for change, no one has to find alternative solutions of their own.

Does Eagle Mountain Need UTA?

Eagle Mountain is about 45 miles from Salt Lake City. It is very much a bedroom community, with most people living in EM and commuting to work in either SLC or the Provo area to the southeast. It is such a new area that roads are often overcrowded, as supply has not kept up with demand.

So in comes the Utah Transit Authority (UTA) to provide express bus services to Eagle Mountain and its neighbor, Saratoga Springs. It will cost an additional quarter-cent in sales tax as well as a $200,000 a year federal grant for the first three years of the new route. After that 3 year period is up, UTA says FrontRunner will be at Thanksgiving Point, "boosting the service". At that point, the route would likely change from going to Salt Lake to just going to the FrontRunner stop.

UTA claims that the bus service would get 25% of commuter traffic, reducing congestion. Lehi, which has seen its city streets explode with traffic as EM and SS grew, would see a 15% drop in traffic, according to the UTA. However, some have expressed deep skepticism in those numbers, citing historical data showing traffic capture of only 1-2%. The heavy commuting nature of Eagle Mountain would likely mean higher commuter-transit usage than other areas, but wouldn't push the numbers quite that significantly.

Cost for this bus line includes:

-$600,000 in federal money
-sales tax money, which the city estimates would have been $10,000 in'07-'08
-the regular $4 per ride, $160 a month bus fare.

Once the two cities approve the bus lines and are annexed into the UTA taxing district, they are guaranteed to pay the tax, but are not guaranteed the bus service. That is up to the UTA commissioners to decide, though it's very unlikely that the service would be removed.

My question is, is UTA necessary? Currently it costs me $160 a month to drive to work in Salt Lake City, and it takes me about an hour. With my carpool partner, the cost is cut in half to $80 a month, and driving in the carpool lane saves time. Now, that doesn't include the cost of buying or maintaining the car. But I would own it even if I didn't commute to work. Maintenance costs obviously are increased because of the increased mileage, but I do it myself and it isn't substantial. With even one more carpool partner, the effective maintenance costs would be decreased further.

Is there a more targeted, more efficient way to provide for mass transit than UTA? I know and understand the benefits of mass transit. What I don't understand is how two passengers in a vehicle costs less than a bus full of people. Also, in addition to my own monthly fare cost, plus the increased sales tax, why must people in Arkansas or South Dakota foot the $600,000 bill to subsidize my commute?

Eagle Mountain residents will vote on the issue in November, and the question I'd like answered by then is, is there an alternative to UTA-directed mass transit?


Sources used:
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,700264432,00.html
http://ssutah.blogspot.com/2008/08/express-bus-plan-short-on-time.html
http://www.davidlifferth.com/site/content_info.php?content_id=2016
http://www.davidlifferth.com/site/content_info.php?content_id=2027