HOV

Guys, we've got to get serious about HOV/HOT enforcement in Utah. Otherwise, were just encouraging people to cheat. And that just encourages more people to cheat. And then all we have is another over loaded freeway lane.

The purpose of a HOV Lane is to encourage carpooling, by making it faster, to compensate for the hassle of picking up another person. The purpose of a HOV/HOT Lane is to get some value out of underused HOV lanes.

Do we need to sue to demonstrate that the modeled improvements for HOV/HOT are bunk, based on lack of enforcement?

Pretty sure traffic cameras are still illegal in Utah. But the world has moved on since then. Cell phone cameras are ubiqitous. Maybe that's it--we need a cop with a cell phone camera, taking pictures of license plates, matching them to DMV data, and sending a 'warning' by text or mail.

"But it's hard to tell if the HOV is legit!".

Maybe. But that is why there is a cop behind the camera--to exercise human judgment.

Boulder Mountain Highway for Tooele

More and more I am hearing about people commuting from Tooele to downtown SLC and the University of Utah. Housing in Tooele is cheap, because the accessibility to jobs is poor. But transport costs are high, as people are driving long distances. Those long distances are being driven by older cars. (As lower-income HH can't afford new cars). That generates a lot of air pollution.

To me, this calls for an Express Bus from Strasbury to the University of Utah, stopping by downtown along the way. (Perhaps at the State and 200 S. Bus Hub...). Nevada has one from an outlying community to the strip, that is well liked. It costs $5 to ride, but that's comparable to the cost of gas for the trip. (Gas was more expensive, then). Still, 25 miles at 25 miles/gallon is a gallon of gas each way. @ about $2.40/gallon, gas alone would not do it.

Surveys and empirical evidence suggest that most people spend 15% of their budget on transport. (Transit dependent populations spend less, something in the neighborhood of 4%, because it's hard to spend that much money on transit. A ticket is a ticket. Two tickets a day or 4 tickets a day is the near-max*).

Do rider-collection near freeways, using a Park and Ride lot, and then the bus--call it an 'Inter-Urban', as it provides access between towns, rather than within them--takes people to SLC CBD and the University.

UTA likely already has something like this, but it's likely sub-optimal. More capital investment would make it better, but 'flexibility' is assumed to be a necessary virtue of all buses; being unable to change a route at the drop of a hat seems terrible. (Nevermind that same flaw is considered a virtue for trains).

*Makes me wonder if there isn't a market for premium transit, costing slightly more than the regular transit, and offering slightly better service. Or double the price for 150% of service (2/3 the travel time).