Transit Trip to Utah County

On Monday, I took a trip down to Utah County to check out the Provo River Trail and to ride the transit system and see how it is doing while BYU is not in main session.

The first bus of the day was a Gillig Low Floor and wouldn't you know it, it was wrapped!&!%!

Next I took the 832 over to the trail. For those of you who have not had a chance to check out the trail, it is a nice trail although it needs to be wider, especially when it goes under roads. Under University Parkway it is too narrow for two humans to pass easily much less if one of them is on a bicycle. However the section of the trail I walked was all covered by mature trees which makes a nice walk in the morning before it gets to hot.

One of the things I noticed is that more than a few stops had the bus stop signs covered by trees or otherwise hard to see. UTA needs to do a better job of making sure their bus stop signs are not covered up and are visible. Also, some shelters would be really nice but no, having shelters along 900 West where they killed service is more important.

Also, half of the bike riders that where riding the bus did not put the bicycle rack back in its home located when they got their bikes back. The best example of customer service I saw was on trip where there was already two backs on the rack, the driver allowed the third person to bring his bike on the bus. I will not say who it was because that driver would probably get in trouble for not following the rules even though he was providing excellent customer service.

Ridership was week except on the 830 which is always a busy route and the 850. In fact the 850 had a pretty full bus, with three loud teenagers, a gang member, and some woman who got on and started talking to someone who wasn't there. Oh well, another day on the bus.

The 811 coming back was also an adventure. It was another Gillig Low Floor and wrapped, however the wrap was torn where I sat so I did not have to deal with the crap. The bus started to overheat and shut off when we got to the American Fork exit. It shut off a few times more as the driver tried to force it to keep going. However, once we left the Lehi area the bus did not give any more problems.

One more note about that bus. Not only was the wrap torn but the my window was also broken. Once again it shows that customers are low on UTA's priorities.

It was another interesting adventure on the UTA, once again showing that UTA has many areas it needs to work on.