Mid Jordan Construction Update

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Mid-Jordan Light Rail TRAX Construction Update: August 20, 2008*

Please forward this information on to others that would be interested.

*This schedule is subject to change due to weather, materials issues, or unanticipated utility conflicts.

Bangerter Highway Road Impacts

UPDATE: Due to materials issues, the Bangerter Highway construction activities have been delayed and will not be taking place as scheduled between August 18^th and August 25^th. There will be a notification when construction activities are scheduled to begin.

Sugar Factory Area

There are no activities taking place that impact traffic at this time.

Old Bingham Area

UPDATE: Due to materials issues, the Old Bingham Highway construction activities have been delayed and will not be taking place as scheduled. There will be a notification when construction activities are scheduled to begin.

Activity: Utility work is currently ongoing. Traffic Impacts: Shoulder work with possible lane restrictions.

Gardner Village Area

Activity: Access to Gardner Village from the Jordan River Parkway Trail is closed until August 2009.

Activity: The Jordan River Parkway Trail will be detoured near approximately 7500 South beginning in early September. More details regarding specific impacts will follow in a separate email update.

Activity: Construction on retaining walls at 7800 South near Gardner Village began on June 30th and will continue for approximately 2 months. Traffic Impacts: There will be a designated truck turning lane on the north side of 7800 South accessing the Gardner Village property. Flagging operations will be in place as trucks enter and exit the roadway. To accommodate this construction, the following closures will be in place:

· The eastbound lane on the south side of 7800 South will be closed as necessary starting on August 6^th

· The westbound lane on the north side of 7800 South will be closed with flagging operations through September 5th

Activity: Grading and utility work is currently ongoing. Traffic Impacts: Shoulder closures with possible lane restrictions.

Cottonwood Area

Activity: Construction will begin in the Cottonwood Street area in early September. More details regarding specific impacts will follow later this week in a separate email update.

Activity: Utility work will continue in the Cottonwood Street area through the month of August. Traffic Impacts: Possible lane restrictions.

If you have any question or concerns regarding the project, please let me know.

Sarah Loughlin

Community Involvement Specialist

Utah Transit Authority

Office: 801-236-4783

24-Hour Project Hotline: (888) 550-2211

sloughlin@rideuta.com

You have been included on the Mid-Jordan Light Rail TRAX Construction Update project update email list. Each time the construction schedule is updated, you will receive an email notifying you of the update. If you would like to be removed from this list, simply send an email stating so.

UTA needs better trip planner...

Image via WikipediaJust a quick note, in the link section of the blog, I have put in the most relevant transit links in Utah. There you will find transit information for the Wasatch Front, Park City, Cache Valley, Cedar City, St. George, and Zion National Park.

While working on that project I fiddled with UTA's Trip Planner. I have mentioned this before but I think it needs to be stated again that this is one area that UTA really needs to work on. The trip planner may be the first exposure that some people have to riding the transit system so it needs to be extremely accurate in giving the best directions. However, UTA's trip planner often is next to useless.

A few months ago when I was taking the westbound California Zephyr I decided to see how long it would take me to get to the Amtrak Station (this was before the opening of TRAX and Front Runner). The trip planner had me take the last 213 at 7:00pm then catch the 45, TRAX, 39, 209 and a couple of other buses before finally arriving at Central Station at 10:00pm. That's right a trip that should take less than an hour showed up as a 3+ hour trip.

I have used trip planners in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, San Diego, and Miami and all of them work better than UTA's. As more new people discover riding the transit system it becomes even more critical to have a easy to use and useful trip planner.

What is really needed is a region wide trip planner that will not only cover the Wasatch Front but also all the transit systems in Utah and connecting services to show customers their best options. But for now it is important to improve the current trip planner from UTA.

Will Transit Funding be Stolen???

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeFor those traveling on I-15 last night, it was a nightmare. A trucked rolled over in Davis County snarling traffic for miles.

I-15 crash snarls evening commute

Apparently many people seeing how bad the tie ups were on I-15 decided to take Front Runner home instead. While the trains may have been overcrowded because of this, at least they didn't have to deal with the traffic tie ups and got home faster.

Here is a nice editorial coming from Utah County about taking the bus.

IN OUR VIEW: The allure of the bus

Next up is an article about walkable communities and how they can keep the pounds off. Imagine that, if the neighborhood is walkable it means that people are more likely to walk and it keeps the weight off. What a concept is that?

Walkable Neighborhoods Keep the Pounds Off

On that note Walk Score has come out with a new walk score calculator plus showing the most walkable cities which does not have Salt Lake City in the top 30. The walk score is still of questionable use since it does not have the abilities to know about sidewalks. After all, my in-laws area shows a higher walking score than our apartment despite the fact that it is not safe to walk from my in-laws home to anywhere.

Transit ridership is surging because of high gas prices so what is President Bush's answer to the situation? His Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters just reveled a plan to transfer funds from transit to highways. Doesn't that make sense?

As Highway Trust Fund Shrinks, Bush Administration Wants to Rob Transit

Funding for transit should be increased now, not taken away to fund more highways.

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More on the Cottonwood Mall Area Development...

Image via WikipediaWhen the announcement came that the Cottonwood Mall would be torn down and replaced by a new development, I was skeptical of how the development would be developed. It look as though General Growth properties basically let the mall die so they could turn around and redevelop and get tax dollars for the development (along with the tax savings they get by building a new development over a remodel).

Well I have kept an open mind that they would do something different, to set it apart from Gateway and blend the development into the rest of the community. We have seen way too many developments like Gateway that are designed to keep people within the complex and do not blend into the rest of the neighborhoods.

Today, I was asked to fill out a survey about what features I would look for if I were to purchase a home in the complex. First of all, in this age of high priced gas, there was no question in the survey about how important transit connections were so I included comments about that in the survey.

While it is too early to see how the development will blend into the community, it looks as though it will be another Gateway were it is easy to move around the development but you will be discouraged from leaving the area. The creek looks like it is designed to be a barrier to people heading to Highland drive. The sidewalks to cross the the creek are very narrow as to discourage people to walk across them.

While General Growth also said that it would like to invite locally owned stores to locate in the center, they made it clear that it would have to be an additional location for a successful high end location.

I do not expect the city of Holladay to do much to insure that the complex is blended into the community since they have show little in the way of good planning sense so far. Clearly this complex is designed for the Lexus and Mercedes crowd and not the UTA riding crowd even if those riders have given up their Lexus to take the bus.

New developments such as the one at the Cottonwood Mall need to be encouraged to blend better into the neighborhood, encourage transit access, and also consider some affordable units to give a better mix of housing options. While some developers see making the complex blend into the community as a bad thing because that encourages people to leave and go to other neighborhood stores, in the long run it will bring more people to the area because it will actually encourage more shoppers to the area because there is a wider range of shopping options.

UTA going to smart cards

Front Runner Inaugural Train at Farmington
Originally uploaded by jmdspk

Article from today's Tribune about UTA going to smart cards.

Need a ride? Show some plastic

It will be interesting to see how these will play out. The benefit is that they can keep track better of passenger boardings.

Bill Tibbets and his gang of yellow shirts, or are they orange? are pushing for the UTA to lower fares in the city. Of course they don't look at the other side of the coin to see if this will produce enough revenue to pay for itself but that is another story.

Of course if UTA does lower fares just in the city of Salt Lake, shouldn't the city be the one to pay for it?

That also brings to question the whole proposal by the yellow shirts. Lets say UTA actually did lower fares just in the city of Salt Lake. Why should someone traveling the same distance pay more because they live in Murray?

Of course the people who make these proposals never look beyond the basics to look at the other side of the coin or the unintended consequences of what they propose.

Developers getting to many breaks?

Image via WikipediaSugar House developer gets a break

Craig Mecham's development in Sugarhouse was controversial to start out with. Taking an area with unique character and bull dozing it to build another gentrified development of chain stores and no character. Now instead of have a unique blend of eclectic shops, we have a big hole in the ground and very little progress being made.

As I have pointed out on several occasions, the Salt Lake City Council and planners seem to give into whatever the developers or big chain stores want no matter the determent to the community. So now we have what was a pedestrian friendly, home to locally owned stores neighborhood that has been torn up and once something actually gets built with be auto centric and not have the feeling the neighborhood once did.

The city council and the planning commission should be working toward building more pedestrian, transit friendly areas. They talk good about them but when all is said and done the city of Salt Lake gets a big F when it comes to acting.

Its time to stop giving too many breaks to developers.

Another Perils for Pedestrians

Here is another episode of Perils for Pedestrians. This one talks about what is happening in Washington DC including the on again off again Purple Light Rail Line.

There is also a discussion with a representative from a county planning organization that covers the county that includes Charleston, South Carolina. One of the problems we face here in Salt Lake City is the lack of a metropolitan planning organization that provides more cohesive planning than the wide range of city planning agencies we currently have. While we do have the Wasatch Front Regional Council, it is not a primary planning organization for the area.

Finally there is an interview with a traffic engineer that gives some explanation on how pedestrian signals are timed and some of the terms used.

Pedicabs in Downtown and the surronding area?

Image via WikipediaHere is an article from Xing Columbus and a link to a more thorough article talking about the use of Pedicabs in the downtown Columbus, Ohio area.

When most people think of Pedicabs Japan and China come to mine as big user of Pedicabs. However, pedicabs are slowly being accepted in certain areas around the country. So how about pedicabs in Salt Lake City? With our wide streets Pedicabs would be able to be in the curb lane while automobiles could use the other lanes.

The big benefit of pedicabs is that they are cleaner since they do not have motors plus they offer a unique travel experience. However, some people don't like the Pedicabs especially the automobile cab industry who usually fight against pedicabs including a vicious fight going on in Los Angeles. In New York pedicabs have become too successful and many groups are trying to get them restricted to benefit of the Pedicab opponents.

Pedicabs would make getting around downtown that much easier plus offer a unique Asian influence to the area. Say you just have a nice dinner at one of our nicer independently owned restaurants, you could use one of the pedicabs to get you a the couple of blocks over to the nearest light rail station.

Pedicabs, a another possible piece of our transportation puzzle.

The City Creek Skybridge...

Image via WikipediaThe Mayoral candidates for Salt Lake City are talking about the proposed skybridge that would cross main street. Lets look at the good and the bad of the bridge and the complex itself.

Good:

1. People will be able to cross Main Street without having to deal with TRAX or automobiles.
2. People on the second floor of the complex will not have to head to the lower level.

Bad:

1. The Skybridge will keep people in the City Creek complex instead of sending them to Main Street and other shopping opportunities.
2. In Spokane the Skybridge system in downtown caused pedestrian traffic on the streets to become none existent. While this is only a single bridge it can have the same affect.
3. It will create a wall between street level and the City Creek complex.

While I am trying to keep an open mind about City Creek, I do see things that concern me. It appears to be very auto centric despite it's downtown location and it is being designed to bring people into the complex and keep them there.

We still have several years before the complex is finished and my fears will not be realized. However, this is the reason why we need a stronger planning force in the city, one that works hard to provide pedestrian and transit friendly buildings so that transit becomes a choice to use and not an obstacle course.

UTA should look to Portland and their buses

Image via WikipediaOne of the weaknesses of the UTA system is the buses. They cost more to operate than light rail and do not attract the number of choice riders that TRAX light rail does. So what can UTA do to improve its bus system and make it attract more choice riders?

UTA needs to look at what Portland is doing on its busiest routes. Since we are stuck with the Low Floor buses that are inferior to the high floors, UTA like Tri-Met in Portland needs to take advantage of them.

What Portland did was go route by route and assign the low floor buses to their busiest routes that will take advantage of the faster loading and unloading. In addition they reduced the number of bus stops (but still keeping them close together), and adjusted the sidewalks and curves to make getting in and out of the low floors as seamless as can be.

This gives the best invest for the dollar short of building streetcar or light rail systems. It speeds up the buses and is more attractive to choice riders.

Among the routes that would be perfect opportunities for this kind of investment is the 8, 9, 22, 30, 31, 39, 40, 70, 603, 612, and the 830 (probably this route will be served more by this than the BRT scheme).

Expansion of TRAX is very important, but still is maintaining and increasing ridership on the bus routes.