Utah Transit Authority Looks South For Good Ideas
None by Elizabeth Ziegler
(KCPW News) Utah's leaders can learn a lot about successful transit systems from Curitiba, Brazilian city similar in size to the Salt Lake metropolitan area, says Ryan McFarland of the Utah Transit Authority. He's asked the Secretary of International Relations for Curitiba to speak at a UTA transit development conference on Monday.
"They are a world-leader in bus rapid transit and transit-oriented development," McFarland says. "Their theory is, if they put transit down, development will come to those lines. And Curitiba is a very interesting city, where they have produced these bus rapid transit lines and these transportation areas and development has just grown up around it."
Curitiba's most populous areas are clustered around transit stops, and include a mix of residences, shops and offices. This kind of development is starting to take off along the Wasatch Front, McFarland says. But the UTA hopes to encourage more of it as Utah's growth continues.
"It encourages more sustainable properties, of course cleaner air, less oil and gas consumption," McFarland says. "It also helps increase ridership and transit use. And that helps us offset some of the costs associated with transit. So, it's a benefit for UTA and for the community because it gets people off the road and it helps build better communities."
The Conference, "Transit Oriented Development Done Right," runs from 9 to 4 p.m. Monday at the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City.
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1. Utah County said:
How about privatizing the transit system and reducing our tax burden?
3. Jeffrey Wood said:
I like what Derek had to say; however with public transit you have a critical mass of service. As with any business, provide limited options and you may have limited business. It's making a balanced judgment on providing additional services to find additional patrons; finding the critical mass to support the spending. Then again, public transit isn’t necessarily a business either, but rather a civil service for the environmentally concerned, less fortunate or those who’ve found the luxury of transit by a Shafer.
4. סקס said:
I saw about Curitiba on TV. It's really amazing green city
2. Derek Monson said:
From the article:
"[Transit Oriented Development] is starting to take off along the Wasatch Front, McFarland says. But the UTA hopes to encourage more of it as Utah's growth continues...'It also helps increase ridership and transit use. And that helps us offset some of the costs associated with transit.'"
So the mentality at the UTA is: if it costs money, build more of it to offset the costs? Throw good money after bad, and eventually we'll break even, is that it?
That seems like a somewhat backwards way to reason through an investment. It may explain, however, why the UTA is constantly pushing to expand mass transit when their other operations consistently operate at a loss.
This kind of mentality will only lead to excessive wastefullness in government. Government officials, and even quasi-government officials like the UTA, need to think through these issues more before they go spending money that is not theirs to begin with.
Further, it is not their job at the UTA to use their authority to be master planners of Utah communities. Their job is to use the resources the people allocate to them through their legislators to help improve transportation opportunities available to Utahns.