It's Been Five Years!!!

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It is hard to believe, but it was five years ago today that I started Transit In Utah.

We have seen some good times in the last five years with the opening of Front Runner, the first of what we hope will be transit oriented development, plus the ground breaking and construction of several new light rail lines.

On the other hand we have seen the problems caused by the many problems with the economy (which we don't seem to learn our lessons from), the subsequent cutting of services due to the downturn in revenues and distractions of organizations such as the bus riders unions that have been popping up despite the damage done by the most famous of bru's in Los Angeles.

Of course our local bus riders union seemed to put on a few dog and pony show's courtesy of the anti-hunger organization but otherwise has been a non-factor.

When I first started this blog I had no idea where I was going to go with it and to some extent I still have no idea where it might evolve. I have toyed with the idea of changing the name and focusing more on general issues instead of being Utah based. This may still come to pass as my work and life may take me to other pastures in the future.

However, I also believe there is so much to learn from what other systems are doing and is being proposed so I am probably going to start talking about some of the issues, problems and successes of other systems. This will especially be true of areas that I am very familiar with such as Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, Spokane, and Charlotte.

In the last five years I have had the pleasure of reading many excellent blogs about transit. Because they are done by people with lives beyond the blog like I do, some of them have faded into the night while others are going strong. I always hate to see when of the writers I like decided to hang up the keyboard because I think we loose something when an excellent writer moves on.

I just to mention a few of the blogs that I regularly read and give them a nod for the work they do. I am not doing them in any particular order, just the way they are bookmarked on my computer which is not exactly alphabetical.

First up is the Cap'n Transit Blog out of the New York metropolitan area. Over the time I have been reading this blog there has been some great postings about coordinating services and other important issues.

Another blog I regularly follow is the Orphan Road blog out of the Puget Sound Region. Another Seattle based blog is the Seattle Transit Blog.

More great information can be had at the Streetsblog network. There is several now but I ones I most often reference is the original in New York, plus the ones in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Out of the Miami area is the Transit Miami blog. Before I traveled down to Railvolution which was a held in Miami a few years ago I was able to catch up on many issues down in that region and check them out.

A great blog that focuses on development and transit issues in the Denver area is the Denver In-Fill Blog.

A couple of blogs I have discovered more recently is Human Transit and Transport Politic.

Finally we have the Transit Sleuth blog. Adron who runs the blog recently moved from Portland to Seattle and is changing over his services which means I have been missing it for the few weeks. He has excellent incites in transit issues from a Libertarian point of view.

Hope you take a look at this excellent blogs.

Well its been five years and I have no idea where this blog will go in the next five years but I am sure it will be a ride :-).