It often takes 2 hours to get by bus or light-rail from one end of Santa Clara county to the other, while driving typically takes an average of 20-25 minutes. Also, VTA is expensive for low-income folks with a minimum of $2 for a single ride, and it takes up to 4-5 rides to get somewhere each way, and so the daily passes are $7.. Which is also a lot. Yearly passes for kids and disabled are $330, $880 for adults and twice that $1760 for express buses.
Utah expands public transportation with rapid bus transit, free until 2021
31–40 of 188 posts
Re: Utah expands public transportation with rapid bus transit, free until 2021
#32As usual, this looks like a half-baked implementation of BRT. They get many things right, including articulated buses, off-vehicle ticket purchase, and raised platforms. However, like most BRT systems in the US, it fails on the most important metric: dedicated lanes. Only half of the route is in exclusive lanes, which means the half the time buses will be fighting traffic. Instead, we should be aiming to build more B…
From the article:
> Features like real-time electronic station signs, dedicated bus lanes and traffic signal priority will be added as construction continues.
The question is whether dedicated lanes for 100% of the route is a launch blocker. Remember that portions of the route are more rural and may not have any congestion to deal with.
Re: Utah expands public transportation with rapid bus transit, free until 2021
#33As usual, this looks like a half-baked implementation of BRT. They get many things right, including articulated buses, off-vehicle ticket purchase, and raised platforms. However, like most BRT systems in the US, it fails on the most important metric: dedicated lanes. Only half of the route is in exclusive lanes, which means the half the time buses will be fighting traffic. Instead, we should be aiming to build more B…
From the article: > Features like real-time electronic station signs, dedicated bus lanes and traffic signal priority will be added as construction continues. The question is whether dedicated lanes for 100% of the route is a launch blocker. Remember that portions of the route are more rural and may not have any congestion to deal with.
From what I see, where there is a lack of dedicated lanes the roads are typically quite narrow--very little room for expansion for even a single dedicated lane (aside from the two lanes of regular traffic).
One section of the route is wide enough, but iirc, the residents along this particular segment in Provo fought against the dedicated lane (and won, afaik).
Re: Utah expands public transportation with rapid bus transit, free until 2021
#34Just thought to leave an aside for anyone considering working in Utah.
I Lived in Orem, Utah for a long-time super interesting state. Everyone is super conservative, no doubt, but they are the nicest people I've ever met. They can be "accidentally" racist and bigoted but I attribute that for their ignorance as opposed to hate.
The church itself governs and operates like a socialist country. Every church member in the world pays 10% of their income to the church, and that money in turn goes towards financing all three Brigham Young Universities - one in Provo Utah, one in Hawaii, and one in Idaho. So a student could get a private-school education for only $2000-5000 a year. The money also goes towards construction projects to build new temples and new churches. It goes towards relief for families that are struggling financially.
The state also has some the best national parks in the countries, and probably the best slopes to ski on.
I think people mentioned this but there is a pretty significant tech presence there as well.
Some downsides, everyone is Mormon is not a lot of stuff is open on Sundays, and even if you're a devout atheist, you'll probably go to church a couple times, because everyone around you goes and you have nothing better to do. Very little diversity, racially, ethnically, politically, religiously, it's almost like living in Japan, where everyone is nice to you but you'll always be considered an outsider.
Re: Utah expands public transportation with rapid bus transit, free until 2021
#35They should make a bus system that can change any light to green when the bus shows up, and control the grid in other ways to truly expedite public transit.
Re: Utah expands public transportation with rapid bus transit, free until 2021
#36Just thought to leave an aside for anyone considering working in Utah. I Lived in Orem, Utah for a long-time super interesting state. Everyone is super conservative, no doubt, but they are the nicest people I've ever met. They can be "accidentally" racist and bigoted but I attribute that for their ignorance as opposed to hate. The church itself governs and operates like a socialist country. Every church member in the…
This is pretty spot on, moved from the Northeast to Utah for school, now done with school and I'm enjoying my time here because I'm in love with the mountains but I'm planning how to move out of the state because I know that I will never feel culturally secure here. Being part of the outdoor community I never find myself struggling to find like minded people, but I do feel like an outsider to society as a whole.
Re: Utah expands public transportation with rapid bus transit, free until 2021
#37A deeply red/Republican and relatively low-density state might seem like a strange place to find a functional public transit system. Utah is an interesting place. The geography of the Wasatch Front lends itself to public transit in ways that less geographically-constrained places do not. The region is mostly a north-south corridor, with occasional off-shoots to the side, which is how the transit network has developed…
Mormons are the kindest and hardest working people in the country. They understand taking care of each other in ways no one else seems to, and I think that is most of the reason why Utah is so functional. Christians that actually act what they speak in nearly every way. An aside, smog is really bad in Salt Lake due to its geography and that is probably one of the reasons they are taking this so seriously.
I’m happy to see so many positive comments about Mormons here. I usually don’t mention that I’m Mormon in online forums since I see mostly negativity about the church. (It’s just me being self-conscious) We’re certainly not perfect but we do try to look out our neighbors, I’m glad that’s recognized on the outside as well.
Re: Utah expands public transportation with rapid bus transit, free until 2021
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thing a larger factor is the Mormon Church/Mormon population. Utah has some strangely progressive economic policies like housing-first solutions to homelessness. Utah is a red state for sure, especially when it comes to social policies, but has the 'community' orientation that another commenter mentioned that public transit falls neatly in to.
A lot of Christians talk a big game about charity and such. But once I started becoming familiar with LDS folk, I was really impressed. They’re Christians in ways many other denominations only claim to be. KSL-TV (LDS-owned NBC station) has an AppleTV app, and watching the SLC local news is far more interesting than I thought it would be. And there’s far less needless murder and mayhem plus more “good” news than is a…
Except they are an outright cult.
Re: Utah expands public transportation with rapid bus transit, free until 2021
#39They should make a bus system that can change any light to green when the bus shows up, and control the grid in other ways to truly expedite public transit.
That technology already exists for emergency vehicles.
Re: Utah expands public transportation with rapid bus transit, free until 2021
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of Christians talk a big game about charity and such. But once I started becoming familiar with LDS folk, I was really impressed. They’re Christians in ways many other denominations only claim to be. KSL-TV (LDS-owned NBC station) has an AppleTV app, and watching the SLC local news is far more interesting than I thought it would be. And there’s far less needless murder and mayhem plus more “good” news than is a…
Except they are an outright cult.
A cult is nothing more than an unpopular religion. Christianity itself was just a Jewish cult until Constantine found it useful.