Posts Tagged ‘public transportation’
free TRAX on red air days?
Finally, a wheatpaste campaign I can get behind: Free rides on TRAX (SLC light rail) during dreaded “red air days.”
But the more I think about it, the more this campaign feels typical of the car-oriented culture here in Utah: public transportation as a last resort. If more residents rode TRAX (or biked, walked, took buses) in the first place, then SLC could reduce pollution before the air reaches red-alert levels. Why wait until a public health emergency to finally make public transport affordable, attractive and feasible?
That is not necessarily a critique—more an observation of how deeply ingrained car culture really is here. After all, knowing how far to push an issue is half the battle, and there is very little political will in Utah to sacrifice pickup trucks and SUVs for the public good.
political boundaries, calculated decisions
Before my husband and I made the final decision to move to Salt Lake City, I downloaded maps of the Salt Lake transit system. No viable public transit system meant no go.
I visited the UTA site and found a TRAX map, and much to my surprise, Salt Lake City appeared to have taken its strategy right out of the Portland play book. Here are maps of the two downtown systems:
Portland:
Portland downtown MAX system — area highlighted in yellow is the Fareless Square (free to ride within those boundaries) source: trimet.org
Salt Lake City:
Salt Lake City University TRAX line – downtown source: rideuta.com
Salt Lake City TRAX Free Fare Zone source: rideuta.com
And, in fact, I was right. Salt Lake City did use Portland light rail as a model. However, once I arrived here and saw the light-rail lines in person, the resemblance seemed only superficial.
As I have written before, Salt Lake City designed its TRAX stops on center islands, meaning pedestrians must cross at least half of a bustling road in order to board the train. It also means riders cannot stroll with friends or colleagues on the sidewalk and chat for a bit at the stop. Who would cross to the traffic island just to finish a chat? They cannot sip coffee at an outdoor cafe and keep an eye out for the train—at least not if they have any hope of catching it.
By contrast, Portland MAX trains stop right at the downtown curbs. I typically walked everywhere I went, but if I needed a lift, I could step out of the Border’s bookstore and straight onto the train (or vice versa). Likewise, I could spontaneously jump onto a streetcar right outside a lecture hall at PSU (and I often did during the winter months or when my knee pain made walking unbearable).
Which is all just to say: In Portland, the MAX trains and streetcars feel integrated into the ecosystem. In Salt Lake City, they feel like an afterthought.
Ecosystem vs. Afterthought
This ecosystem vs. afterthought feeling extends to ticketing policies, too: Fareless Square in Portland takes you all the way from one end of downtown to the other. PSU students can hop on and head to Powell’s Books for free. Stuffed suits in the office towers downtown can catch a lift to a meeting or lunch.
The Free Fare Zone in Salt Lake City feels cramped by comparison. You can ride free around the mall area and downtown towers, but forget a free lift to the university or any of the downtown grocery stores. The best you can do is the Gateway Mall to the public library.
Political and Psychological Boundaries
Those who live on the non-Fare Free side of the SLC library feel acutely aware of the psychological, economic and political boundary. Not all of downtown feels like downtown. At least, that is the gist I get from conversations with fellow public-transportation advocates—admittedly, a very small sample.
True, Portland’s Fareless Square creates boundaries, too, but most of them feel natural to the downtown ecosystem: Fareless Square draws the line at the 405 Freeway, the Willamette River (with one exception being a free ride to Lloyd Center), and NW Irving, near the end of the Pearl District. The NW Irving boundary strategically prevents people from ditching their cars in the NW 23rd residential areas for impromptu park-and-rides.
In SLC, the boundaries feel like calculated decisions to restrict free access to only a few particular areas of commerce and public engagement: the Gateway Mall, Temple Square, the courthouse and library. I suppose if you have to pick and choose, those locations make good sense.
Calculated Decisions
But then the city has to prepare for residents to weigh the costs and make calculated decisions, too. Residents might decide to drive downtown to the Farmer’s Market or Gateway Mall because they don’t want to schlep their purchases from the last Fare Free stop to their home—and it’s cheaper to drive than pay the full fare. Considering the air-quality issues and pedestrian-hostile culture in Salt Lake City, it makes very little sense to limit the Fare Free Square to such a small radius.
Of course, one could argue that Portland’s boundaries represent calculated decisions, too. Perhaps PDX just covers its tracks a little better. After all, residents there have accused the city of favoring wealthy developments when it invested in the streetcar lines.
This post lays the tracks (yeah, bad pun, but I couldn’t resist) for a larger discussion about green planning & city ecosystems in Salt Lake City vs. Portland. In Portland, developments operate as part of a total ecological strategy—for better or worse. In Salt Lake City, developments sometimes seem designed to fit the culture that already exists—for better or worse. More to come.
