FrontRunner South's opening day headaches

I was willing to forgive when it came to mix-ups and a littlechaos on the day Utah Transit Authority began FrontRunner service south toProvo. The opening of the new North Temple station and others south of SaltLake Central necessitated all manner of bus-route and even TRAX-train reroutingand schedule changes. I get that.

Still, I’ve been riding FrontRunner to downtown Salt LakeCity for more than four years, and despite questions and complaints fromsqueaky wheels like me, there are some things the UTA simply refuses to getright.

From what I read in the paper, the people who manage UTA arehighly paid for their expertise. Indeed, their competence is offered as thechief defense of what some observers view as outsized pay and benefits andretirement packages. Good for them; I wouldn’t turn down a raise, either.

Given all that superiority in the transit-agency-managing profession:

• Why is there no mid-platform crosswalk at Salt Lake Central Station? It would allow customers departing incoming buses to cross the east set of FrontRunner tracks to board a train awaiting them on the west FrontRunner tracks. There’s a crosswalk at the Farmington station. At Salt Lake Central, those trying to connect between buses and FrontRunner at or near departure times must sprint half the length of the platform, or wait 15, 30 or 60 minutes for the next connection, depending on the desired bus or train route. I’ve asked UTA’s “station hosts” at Salt Lake Central about the lack of a crosswalk. They’ve all said it was supposed to be done long ago. With all due respect to UTAmanagement, why has the agency been able to construct hundreds of millions ofdollars’ worth of rail lines to Utah County but neglected to install a simplecrosswalk?
• And why do buses – empty ones, at that -- at various FrontRunner stations pull away just as the commuter train is pulling into the station, forcing passengers to miss connections and wait? Instead, the buses should be queued up in a line waiting for FrontRunner passengers to disembark.
• I have more complaints, but I’ll conclude with this one, which is specific to my weekday experience on FrontRunner between the Clearfield and Salt Lake Central stations: Why do full southbound trains sometimes have to pull over on a Centerville siding and stop to wait for nearly empty northbound trains in the morning? It creates a five-minute delay that causes us to miss bus and TRAX connections at the North Temple and Salt Lake Central stations, further lengthening our commute. Just as puzzling and frustrating is the habit of northbound afternoon-drive-time trains, full of passengers, parking at the same Centerville siding while nearly empty southbound trains fly by.

If UTA’s goal is to move as many people as quickly andefficiently as possible, that goal is too frequently not being achieved. On“change day,” Dec. 10, I asked a good-humored UTA employee assigned to work theNorth Temple station’s bus stop why my 516 bus pulled away before FrontRunnerarrived. “I don’t know,” he answered, “because they’re not supposed to.” Thenwe chatted for a few moments in the pre-dawn cold as I pelted him with more ofmy complaints, none of which he could speak to with authority. He was polite; Ihope I was, too.

“If I try this stop again tomorrow, will that 516 bus waitfor the train?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I hope so.”

I hope so, too.

UPDATE, 6:20 p.m.:
The 516 bus arrived on time, but the 6 p.m. FrontRunner was 20 minutes late. Had a very pleasant chat with a UTA employee on the North Temple platform, though, who said he'd seen several trains with Comet cars in the four-passenger-car setup. I hope they begin including them as a matter of course. He said the learning curve for Utah County riders has not been steep and it's been difficult to get them on and off the trains in a hurry.

Now we're parked at Woods Cross awaiting a southbound train.

Let's try this again

OK, I got sidetracked (pun!) a while back, but maybe this time I'll stick to it. Like I said: not so much to complain as to offer news and maybe a viewpoint now and then.

So, what got me blogging again? Two passenger cars on this morning's FR train to SLC. Most mornings, I take the 6:31 from Clearfield to Salt Lake Central. There are typically three Bombardier (the double-decker) cars in the morning. Today, only two. And one of the cars was a bicycle car, meaning one whole side of the downstairs compartment on my car was devoid of seats.

I stood to allow a couple of women to sit (I'm always surprised more men don't offer their seats). No big deal, but as I wrote in an email to UTA later in the day, it would have been nice to hear why we had only two cars. There was a train host aboard, but he made himself scarce. And the driver offered only that there had been a "malfunction" that left our train with only two cars.

I believe UTA could reduce most of the passenger frustration simply by offering as much information as possible. The host should have been telling everyone aboard exactly what went wrong. Lots of people around me were complaining; information would have silenced them and let us know what had happened.

This is quite common. When the trains sometimes start out of a station, then stop-start-stop-start even when no other train is approaching, we should know why. Most of us have schedules to keep, and it's a courtesy that's not too much to ask to be informed what's going on.

FrontRunner's 'missing' Comet cars

Inspiration born of frustration. That's how this blog is being launched. I'll admit it right up front: The Utah Transit Authority has been frustrating me lately, and I have to vent about it somewhere. (More on that in a moment.)

But while I admit my crankiness, I don't want this to be one of those blogs that does nothing but bag on a target -- or targets. I've been commuting from Davis County to an office building in downtown Salt Lake City via FrontRunner, TRAX and bus since autumn 2008, and I must admit I'm slightly fascinated by the way the system works, and the odd habits of riders and drivers and schedulers. So my aim is to write about more than my complaints, although I do very much like to complain.

So, on to the griping: What finally tipped me into blogging about my experience was UTA's decision to trim FrontRunner passenger cars from three to two -- and without any warning that I ever noticed. (I looked on the UTA Web site after the fact, and there was nothing there in the newsroom.) Two or three weeks ago, on a Monday, if memory serves, I rode FR to Salt Lake, as usual, riding in the Comet car (the long, single-decker passenger car situated just south of the engine as opposed to the double-decker Bombardier cars that have tables). Anyway, that evening, arriving back at Salt Lake's Central Station, the train heading back north had no Comet car in the mix, and only two Bombardiers.

I walked onto the north car just about a minute before it left the station, and was left to stand with about 20 other passengers who didn't have a seat -- all the seats in our car were occupied. I asked the station host who was holding the doors open for late-comers why there was no third car. He replied that since the U. classes were over for the semester, they would need one until January. I asked him, rhetorically, if the standing-room-only didn't disprove that theory. He just let the door close.

After the train left the station, when the reflective vest-wearing host walked through, everyone had to make room for her. Not looking forward to the long ride home standing between the doors and unable even to find a handle to hold onto or a wal to lean against as the train rocked back and forth between Salt Lake and Woods Cross, I asked her why there was no third car. She was polite, but said the decision was made above her pay grade. Then she allowed that she'd moved to Utah from the East Coast, and people standing on trains there was no big deal, it was to be expected. I saw other people besides me roll their eyes at that one.

Too rudely, I'm sure, I told her that's why people live out West instead of in the East: more room. Plus, I said, I'm used to having a seat for my 40-minute ride. If I have to stand from now on, I'll take the slower express bus or maybe even drive -- the latter defeating a chief purpose of public transit: to get people out of single-occupant vehicles at rush hour.

She recommended that is we didn't like it, we should write or call UTA. As we stopped at Woods Cross, Framington and Layton, people got off, a few got on and seats filled back in from those standing. I stood until my stop in Clearfield.

The odd thing has been, some trains have since arrived with three passenger cars, while others continue to have only two. But the timing doesn't make much sense, as far as I can tell. Earlier this week, for example, the southbound train arrived with only two Bombardiers; it was snug, but nobody was standing in my car. But the northbound train -- the ones that are practically empty because so few people ride northbound trains in the morning -- had two Bombardiers and a Comet.

To me, that doesn't make any sense. But I'm probably missing something.

I understand that UTA is trying to save money, and towing one fewer passenger car saves fuel. But how much, in the grand scheme? A UTA manager told me once that the trains burn a gallon of diesel ever 0.9 miles traveled with three Bombardier cars in tow. The Comets, he said, weigh half as much but have slightly fewer seats and no tables for laptops. I'm no mathematician, heaven knows, but isn't there a combination of the Comets and/or Bombardiers that could haul lots of people and still meet the fuel-use targets? Just wondering.

At any rate, I can't wait until next week when three passenger cars becomes the standard again ... I hope.