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SALT LAKE CITY — The Salt Lake County Council voted unanimously Tuesday to send a letter to the Utah Transit Authority board of trustees calling for expansion of bus service into neighborhoods.
"We have a great light-rail system. We have a great FrontRunner system. We have great access along the major arteries," County Councilman Michael Jensen said. "But where we break down is getting folks from neighborhoods into those arteries. Some folks have to walk a long way."
Jensen said the council is requesting UTA give greater priority to neighborhood bus service because it has become a growing concern for Salt Lake County residents.
Yet Proposition 1, a ballot measure that would have increased tax dollars for local transportation and transit projects, failed in Salt Lake County in November by less than 3 percent.
Charles Henderson, chairman of the UTA Planning and Development Committee, said the agency has already prioritized increasing reach and frequency of bus service in Salt Lake County, along with other surrounding communities.
$86 million budgeted for buses
"Our 2016 budget has obviously been set, but of that $222 million operating budget, $86 million is specifically for buses," Henderson told the County Council. "We understand the need. We hear almost every board meeting and committee meeting that bus service is critical to expanding ridership."
Since 2007, bus service has been pushed to the "back seat," Henderson said, to prioritize funds for building UTA's light-rail system.
"But for the last past two years, we have been focusing on restoring that bus service," he said. "In fact, we were expecting with Proposition 1 passing in Salt Lake County, that we would get close to, if not equal to, where we were prior to 2007. That was our objective, to restore what had been … cannibalized as a result of the light-rail system."
Without Proposition 1 revenue in Salt Lake County, UTA is now seeking creative ways to fund expansion of residential bus service, Henderson said.
"The emphasis we have this year is restoring as much of the bus service as we can with what we have," he said. "We're looking at every way we can potentially fund it."
Councilwoman Jenny Wilson said even though UTA's 2016 budget has already been set, she hopes the council's letter represents a "direct call from the community" to support increased residential bus service in long-term planning.
