The good and bad of getting around on Utah transit
Author: Benjamin Wood
Wood, Benjamin. “The Good and Bad of Getting around on Utah Transit.” Salt Lake City Weekly, https://www.cityweekly.net/utah/lets-roll/Content?oid=19918240. Accessed 3 Nov. 2023.
Utah, like much of the American West, is car country. That worked OK for a long time—assuming you could afford to buy a car and perpetually fill it with gasoline—but population growth, climate change, cost of living and Utah’s horrendous air quality have put enough pressure on the roads that even car-brained state leaders are beginning to acknowledge that, just maybe, “mistakes were made.”
Luckily, we’re not starting from Square 1. No, at minimum we’re at Square 2, maybe even Square 3. Here’s what to know about traveling without a car in Utah.
Good: It’s Free Downtown
A “free-fare zone” exists around Salt Lake City’s urban core, bordered by Salt Lake Central Station to the west, the Utah State Capitol to the north, the Main Library to the east and the Matheson Courthouse to the south.
It doesn’t help much with bus service (you’d have to be taking a pretty short trip) but it’s handy for using Trax light rail to explore Main Street if you’re already downtown.
Maybe you want to get some shopping in after a movie or grab a bite to eat before a Jazz game?
Leave the car parked—or the bike locked—and use the trains to make a night of it.
Bad: Lawmakers Hate “Free”
The Utah Transit Authority (UTA) has run a number of free-fare initiatives, with things like airline boarding passes and concert tickets counting as transit fare.
And in 2022, Salt Lake City pushed UTA to go fully free for the entire month of February.
No surprise, these initiatives led to increased ridership.
Gov. Spencer Cox called for a full year of free fares to study its effect on air quality and traffic congestion, but lawmakers were quick to shut down that kind of talk, lest it spread.
“Nothing is free,” insisted Rep. Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, the No.
2 Republican in the Utah House.
Following this statement, Schultz drove 45 minutes to his home along highways that were built at taxpayer expense on land ripped away from low-income, majority-minority residents, likely complaining about congestion the whole way.
Good: There Are Trains to Get You Around
The Trax Green Line is the best way to get to and from Salt Lake City International Airport, while the Red Line will run you up to the University of Utah (and Bonneville Shoreline Trail) or down south to the master-planned community of Daybreak.
On the Blue Line, you can go hiking or mountain biking in Draper’s Corner Canyon or connect to a regional FrontRunner train or Amtrak’s cross-country train line, the California Zephyr, at Salt Lake Central.
Bad: Rail Is Poorly Planned and Largely Nonexistent
FrontRunner follows the Interstate 15 corridor, connecting Salt Lake City with Ogden to the north and Provo to the south.
But the decision-makers who built it 20 years ago had no clue and left the train with one hand tied behind its back.
With only hourly service outside of weekday rush hours and no service at all on Sundays, FrontRunner is not for beginners and requires concerted effort and planning on both ends of the trip.
Train stations have few, if any, amenities and limited, if any, shelter from the elements.
They tend to deposit riders into a sea of park-and-ride surface lots, because the train was foolishly designed to be driven to.
And if you’re looking to go east or west away from I-15, you’re simply out of luck.
No trains exist outside the Wasatch Front.
Good: There’s an App for That
Utah’s transit network doesn’t reward for spontaneity but there are ways to make it work for you.
Thanks to funding from Salt Lake City, UTA recently began running high-frequency bus lines at 15-minute intervals, finally creating a limited number of routes for which schedule memorization is unnecessary.
If you live, work, study and/or shop around those lines—and only those lines—you can experience true transit convenience.
For other trips, the Transit app (transitapp.com) allows would-be riders to map their routes and purchase tickets.
As this is not a UTA app, it works in many towns and cities you may happen to be in.
It also provides live location tracking and notifications for when to deboard and what connections to make.
Type in your destination and your starting point and the Transit app will show you a list of options with fairly accurate arrival time estimates.
You can also text the ID number listed on your bus stop to 882-882 to see when the next buses serving that stop will arrive.
Bad: The Transit App Will Wipe Out Your Battery
The Transit app will get you where you’re going, but you might not have a working smartphone by the time you get there.
Particularly with its “Go” feature activated—but even when it’s not—the app uses a staggering amount of battery power as it tracks not just your location but that of the various buses and trains snaking their way around the valley.
Use it for your first few rides, but make sure you pack a charge cord with you.
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