This thread discusses the Content article: IN OUR VIEW: The allure of the bus

The story says, "You can now ride public transit from Utah County to Salt Lake City for $2." I take an express bus to SLC to work every day. One-way fare for an express bus is $4.50. I'm not sure, but I don't think there are any regular buses (the $2 one-way fare) that go between Utah County and SLC.

You can get from Utah County to SLC for $2, yes, but only by taking a bus to the Sandy Trax station and then transferring to the train. It's a two hour trip, when you could go by car in 45 minutes.

The real problem, though, is local transit. Sure, if I want to get to Salt Lake, I can do it on the bus and/or Trax. But not too long ago, I looked for a way to get from my house (east Provo) to work (at that time, Canyon Park, the former Word Perfect campus in northeast Orem), and found that it would take *longer* to do that than to go to Salt Lake. By contrast, I could bike it in about half an hour.

Public transportation is a good thing. I'd love to be able to use it more. But until we fix the *local* routes, it's not a workable option. Perhaps it's time to bid UTA goodbye and set up a Utah County transit system instead.

The DH overestimates the ease of traveling via public transportation and underestimates the cost. My husband has a pass that is significantly subsidized by his employer, making taking the express bus to downtown SLC less expensive for us, so he uses that alternative whenever feasible.

However, today he works up in SLC for half the day then he will work in Provo for the other half. There is no easy way for him to use the bus (or TRAX-which really only is useful for travel within Salt Lake County) to get him to and from his various places of work in a timely fashion.

I've used the bus and TRAX, usually in the free fare zone, with my children, but have found it difficult to use the online planning tools without already having some knowledge of the location I'm trying to get to. It is also cheaper and much faster for me to drive when I have my children with me.

The "fold up your stroller" rule is also a public transportation deterrent. I use the stroller, not only for transporting a young child, but for storing all the stuff I have to drag along for said child. It is no trivial matter to take the child and the stuff out of the stroller and to somehow hold the child, the stuff and the stroller in a way to prevent it all from scattering throughout the bus. My last trip on a bus, a couple weeks ago, I had an infant in a sling and a toddler in a stroller and three other children in tow, ranging from 4 to 7. Please, DH, tell me how this is easy and cheap outside of the free fare zone!

I agree that public transportation is a great alternative in some ways. You can save gas money and wear and tear on your car and you can get some reading done on the way. However, unless your commute would use more than a gallon of gas/day, then public transportation is not cheaper.

I've just begun taking the bus to work from Holladay to downtown SLC. I calculated that I use less than a gallon of gas for my commute, so it's actually a little more expensive to take the bus. By buying a monthly pass the cost to ride the bus is probably about the same as the cost for me to drive. And savings only accrue if I ride the bus often enough in a month to get my money's worth. I've chosen to ride the bus to force myself to read every day and to save wear and tear on my car but not for gas money.

justandholy wrote:
I agree that public transportation is a great alternative in some ways. You can save gas money and wear and tear on your car and you can get some reading done on the way. However, unless your commute would use more than a gallon of gas/day, then public transportation is not cheaper.

I've just begun taking the bus to work from Holladay to downtown SLC. I calculated that I use less than a gallon of gas for my commute, so it's actually a little more expensive to take the bus. By buying a monthly pass the cost to ride the bus is probably about the same as the cost for me to drive. And savings only accrue if I ride the bus often enough in a month to get my money's worth. I've chosen to ride the bus to force myself to read every day and to save wear and tear on my car but not for gas money.

Are you factoring in maintenance costs with the mileage or only gas?
http://www.commutesolutions.org/calc.htm

I've spent many hours contemplating a possible bus route to the two jobs I've driven from Utah county for. The first job lacked any bus stops within two miles. My current job would require three transfers, over 30 minutes of waiting for connections and last 90 minutes. When you work 12 hour shifts, that doesn't make any sense.

Driving my car to work takes about 40 minutes. To me, the trade off is not worth it, yet.

I think the problem lies in the UTA routing. The few express busses there are, bypass the trax station and service only those working in downtown Salt Lake. Wouldn't it make sense to have an express bus going to the trax station with closely timed branch offs to the Salt Lake Valley?

While the bus route is more than double my daily commute, I'll just have to keep driving my car.