A reader just contacted us and made an interesting comment:

“I keep hearing buses are the answer. Usually when something is free everyone wants a piece. Look at Costco samples. If people don’t take advantage of free, there’s something wrong with the product. What’s wrong with the buses. You don’t get cheaper than free.”

Over the weekend we had a discussion with a friend, that was sparked by Friday’s transportation discussion between Park City Mayor Jack Thomas and KPCW’s Leslie Thatcher. That conversation indicated that buses were likely the only feasible “solution” to our areas’s transportation problems.

We asked our friend who lives in Jeremy Ranch and works in Prospector about busing. Specifically:

• How long does it take you to drive into work each day?
• How long would you be willing to wait for a bus, if you were to ride it to work?
• How many bus transfers would you be willing to make?
• How long from door to door are you wiling to tolerate?
• How far will you walk from bus stop to work?

You see, we hear all the time that buses are the solution. The county is even upping the ante by looking at putting a transit station in Kimball Junction. Yet, we read articles like “Buses are for Other People” and we try to understand the disconnect. It seems each time our government officials talk about buses, they are speaking at the 30,000 foot level.

So, we decided to ask someone on the ground that doesn’t bus today, and who has looked at it, what it would take to get her on a bus. The responses? Right now it takes about 20 minutes to drive in to get to work by 8:30. She’d be willing to wait 15 minutes for a bus. She wouldn’t do more than one transfer. She’d be willing for the entire run to take about 40 minutes. She’d be willing to walk somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes to get to work. She also pointed out that she lives about a mile from the bus stop in Jeremy Ranch, so she would have to drive and park there (unless she wanted to walk another 20 minutes).

Using Google Transit we then looked up what her commute would look like today:

• She’d need to leave her residence by about 7:20 in order to get to the Jeremy Ranch Park and Ride.
• Her bus would arrive at 7:30 AM (buses come every 30 minutes).
• It’s takes 15 minutes and 12 stops to get to Kimball Junction. So, she would get there by 7:45AM, according to bus schedules.
• The bus for Park City leaves at 7:45. So, as long as timing is perfect, she’d make that. Otherwise, she would wait (and be very late for work).
• She would arrive at Hotel Park City at 7:53, after 15 stops.
• She would the transfer to another bus that would get her to the Park City Marriott by 8:09.

You contrast that with hopping in the car at about 8AM and going door to door. That said, this fits many of the criteria she laid out, but would an average person choose this path? We wouldn’t and this is actually one of the best routes we’ve seen. Leaving work and going to her residence requires even more time and more walking, as well.

We think that’s why buses have a hard time. It’s complicated for people to get their heads around… and no, an iPhone app that helps with scheduling, is not an answer.

Now, if you make a mandatory minimum$30 parking charge, you may move people to embrace busing. $30 to park at Smith’s to get your groceries … $30 to park at Cole Sports to buy a present … $30 to park at City Hall to go to work … . Then you might see people riding the bus.

While we wait for those “incentives” to be put in place, we’ll be contemplating the real world. Buses sound good, but in reality its a non-starter, unless behaviors are forcibly changed through draconian measures. Those draconian measures, when implemented, would impact the low and middle class more. You would have to charge enough to convince the wealthy to change behavior, unfortunately that would be a death blow to Park City’s working population. It would be completely regressive.

So, in our minds, buses are as likely to succeed as a $65 million per mile light rail… just for different reasons. We need better ideas, not just easy ones.

This morning, KPCW’s Leslie Thatcher asked Park City Mayor Jack Thomas about transportation. Their exchange of questions and answers highlights the level of challenge we as a community face in order to start tackling the transportation issue:

Ms Thatcher: Since we only have two lane highways… we talk about “let’s get people on buses” but until it gets too expensive to park or there is no where to park, people are going to take their own cars. It’s almost like you have to pinch them and then they’ll change what they are doing.

Mr Thomas: This is an unbelievably complicated task. The amount of traffic that comes and goes is not just one element. It’s a combination of different fibers of people. Construction traffic… People that live here and work in SLC … etc. Its complex. Kent Cashel [Park City’s Transportation Guy] has been looking at those issues and is trying to understand the breakdown of the traffic itself. Then how do we begin to attack each issue. Is there a way to modify behavior to work differently?

Ms Thatcher: Also some talk about Light Rail. The price tag that was thrown out was $66 million per mile. So, that’s not going to happen. So, should we just move on?

Mr Thomas: I think we understand that light rail development increases development. Light rail increases and concentrates development. $66 million dollar per mile is for flat ground on grade. That’s not digging through tunnels. So, it’s kind of a price tag that an urban community can deal with but its hard for a community like our with so little population. So, we are looking at bus rapid transit. There are two types. There is one called Bus Light which would have buses about the size we have now that would work on the roads we have now … more of them and more stops. That’s about a half million dollars per mile. Or there is Bus Rapid Transit Dedicated Line which is more like $4 million dollars per mile. There are other communities that have done something like that. For instance the RFTA project between Glenwood Springs and Aspen is a new system that has a geography and similar structure and size to what we have here and that seems to be working.

Ms Thatcher: I thought that the word was that they are not using it. It’s a “great system” but…

Mr Thomas: That’s true. That’s the criticism. I think most transportation systems, when they begin, are pretty lightly used. We are exploring all the possibilities. We are not interested in increasing the widths of the highways. We don’t see building more road, bigger roads, is the better way to the solution of the future. Maybe managing better and getting more systematic about the traffic lights [is the way to go].

OK, Park Rag here with our thoughts. This was a great question and answer session. It highlights most of the issues. Unfortunately, we are starting to feel like we are in Transportation Purgatory. We will forever be sentenced to traffic nightmares because of the sins of our past. Sorry, but we don’t have great hope that buses and traffic lights are going to fix things.

Can someone please come up with something original. We heard a guy talking about Zeppelin’s last week. Crazy… for sure. More likely to be successful than tinkering with traffic lights? Probably.

While we wait, we’ve decided to be productive and work on some t-shirt designs.

This morning on KPCW we heard from Leslie Thatcher that an article had been sent to government officials that basically said that “people love buses … as long as they aren’t the ones riding in them.”

Especially in an upscale environment like Park City, it is important to understand what people actually will use versus what we wish they would use. We could put 1,000 buses on the road between the airport and Park City but would the average family from Chicago ride in a bus? The truth is no amount of marketing or parking fees is going to get that family in a bus. The Chicago family is already paying $800 a night at the Montage (and probably $30 a day in parking). They don’t care… and most importantly won’t ride a bus. No matter how much we wish they would.

Here is the document that was sent to our government officials (click the image for a bigger version — you may need to click again once you are looking at it to make it really big):

h/t to the Friend of Ours who forwarded us this document

The Mountain Accord, a group of 20 organization and 200 stakeholders, has formally proposed transportation alternatives for linking areas within the Wasatch Front and between the Wasatch Front and Wasatch Back. This includes the proposal of either aerial trams or a tunnel between Brighton and Park City, Express Bus Service up Parley’s, bus or rail between Kimball Junction and Park City, and bus or rail from Quinn’s Junction to Park City.

If you want to learn more or provide input, they are holding a session at the Eccles Center on February 24 from 6:00 – 8:30PM. If you would like to read the full report, click here.

Here is the proposed map. Click the map for a bigger version.