Cities Forge Ahead With Transit, But Atlanta Lags Behind

The author of the above article commends Salt Lake's rail projects being built by Utah Transit Authority. But, beyond the world class UTA propaganda, there is much more to this sordid story. Here are a few facts about America's worst light rail projects HERE in Utah and a warning against Atlanta pursuing a similar path.

Modeling of ridership for the preferred alignment of the Draper TRAX extension shows it would reduce congestion in Salt Lake County-- by 2030--- from 238,327 hours a day clear down to 328,322 hours a day; A bicycle stand with a few bikes would easily do as well. With an annualized cost of over $20 million, the cost-benefit calculation for this whopping 5-hour a day, (1460 hours a year) reduction is over $13,000 per hour saved. Its effect on regional trips is calculated at 0.01%. No sane person or company official would carry such a project further.
(The Draper TRAX Extension Technical Memorandum is available on-line at www.rideuta.com in UTA’s “2015 Projects” folder.)

The West Valley extension, now in construction, is predicted to reduce regional congestion by 0.00% for a paltry $700 million. The performance figure is from the "transportation section", chapter 4, of Utah Transit Authority’s Final ESR for the project.
(The Final ESR document is available on-line at www.rideuta.com )

A planned Airport extension will cost between $350 million and $450 million. However, the only transportation study ever done at the airport, by national consulting firm HNTB Assoc., noted that 99.4% of airport patrons AND 99% of employees avoided UTA's big buses. A reasonable person would find no expectation of future performance worth "investing" these hundreds of million$. Even my 8 year-old grandson would recognize the irrationality of scaling up the vehicle size in this situation.
(This data is from the SLIA Airport 1998 Masterplan, Chapter 3. The entire MasterPlan is available from the planning division of the SLIA Airport Authority.)

The above three rail projects are in areas having close freeway access; roads are mostly uncongested. I.e., there is no real NEED for these rails.

A fourth light rail project, the MidJordan Line is in an area of great and urgent transportation need because it has no freeways. Congestion on overcrowded arterials is expected to spike to LA/NYC levels by 2030. But this rail line adds just one FTA New Rider trip for every 530 future daily trips in the area, (wfrc District 6). Its regional contribution from the final New Starts document is just 3,724 New Riders. This is just 31 one-thousandths of one percent of twelve-million daily regional trips forecast for 2030.

The above light rails will use up enough money, rail-build and operating subsidies included, to instead add a new long-overdue freeway in the western Salt Lake valley, most of which has NO FREEWAY ACCESS and is in desperate need of FREEWAY-EQUITY vis a vis Salt Lake City.

Please bear in mind that heavily congested areas that lack freeway access are at risk in this post-9/11 world. Lives may be lost in an emergency due inability to get out of dodge when needed. The fault for this hazardous situation is ultimately due to irrational and strongly political transportation "planning" and mis-prioritization of limited funds.

Obviously the priorities of our leaders are wildly out of kilter. Theirs is not a good process to emulate.

Further details in OpEd at:
www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,700240466,00.html

Michael T. Packard BSEE