Stewart 1

Nash Stewart
Ms. Loreen Bessire
12/12/14
Portfolio Draft
Is public transit a good solution to cut pollution in Salt Lake City?
The UTA transit system in the Salt Lake City area in Utah exists to help people travel
without needing a car. The Salt Lake Valley, due to its unique geographical formation, suffers
from frequent inversions during the winter. This weather system traps the cold, smoggy air
underneath a layer of warm air by a high pressure system. This does not allow any of the
pollution caused by peoples cars to leave the valley and instead traps it in. This causes the
people to be breathing in this smog for days, and sometimes weeks, which has adverse effects
upon their health. Air pollutants can adversely affect human health in a number of ways, both
directly and indirectly. Direct effects in downwind populations can range from acute intoxication
and prompt mortality from peak point source dischargesto delayed developmental deficits
resulting from chronic lead exposureIndirect effects can also result from acidic sulphur and
nitrogen compounds that deposit on soil and leach toxic metals from the soil that bio-accumulate
in food crops and flesh that are ingested (McGranahan, Murray, 46). This paper will be
reviewing the UTA transit system as a possible solution to the Salt Lake Valleys winter smog
problem by evaluating the travel time, cost, traffic reduction, and coverage, of it using the
criteria found in Todd Litmans Evaluating Public Transit Benefits and Costs: Best Practices
Guidebook to the residents of Salt Lake.
There has been a lot of discussion about riding the bus to cut down on air pollution, but
people are wondering if riding public transit will actually work. If having people ride the bus

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does reduce smog, does it reduce it enough to make it worth it? The Division of Waste
Management and Hazardous Substances of the state of Delaware has a website that discusses this
situation. They say, A bus with as few as seven passengers is more fuel-efficient than the
average single-occupant auto used for commuting (Delaware, pars. 1-3). They also claim that,
Buses emit only 20% as much carbon monoxide per passenger mile as a single-occupant auto
(Delaware, par 2). This paper will also evaluate the UTA bus riding experience to determine if
the bus system that exists is good enough in Salt Lake City to get enough people to ride it to
make a significant impact on what is called the Winter Smog Problem.
I decided to ride the bus to experience this situation firsthand. I wanted to know what
this was like so that I could more accurately evaluate other peoples experience compared with
my own. The wait for the bus was not too bad. The air was cool and crisp and the sun was warm
and soothing on my skin. The wait for the bus was only ten or fifteen minutes. The bus was not
late, which made for a pleasant wait in the autumn air. Waiting like this in the winter when the
inversion is in full effect throughout the Salt Lake valley would not be fun, however. A fifteen
minute wait in cold, wet snow is different from waiting in the pleasantly cool fall weather, and is
not something that would be enjoyable.
The cost was also very impressive. The bus arrived and the fare was only two dollars and
fifty cents. Two dollars and fifty cents is not bad especially when people can use the transfer
from that fare to get back home. So the entire trip from work to school was only two and a half
dollars. The cost was very impressive for the distance traveled.
The ride itself was nice and the air was a comfortable temperature inside the bus. The
seats of the bus were a little tattered and some were stained but nothing unbearably dirty or
unkempt. There were not many people on the bus. Although there are a lot more people on the

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buses downtown, it is still unclear why there were so few people on the bus from Cottonwood
Heights to Salt Lake City downtown until the buses arrival in downtown Salt Lake an hour later
ten minutes later. This was the biggest problem, and helped conclude that it is the biggest
problem with public transportation. It can take more than an hour to ride the bus. Many people
with cars would not ride the bus under these conditions. Riders may also need to afford
themselves extra time for traveling to and from the bus stop, waiting for the arrival of the bus,
and the extra travel time for multiple stops when they are on the bus. The extra time is only part
of the problem. Another problem is that there is a lot of extra walking when someone takes
transit. A UTA board member, Nina Christensen, tried to ride transit for 1 week and mentioned
that Ive learned that I cant go everywhere I want without a lot of walking. I had blisters the
first day because I had to go someplace I wasnt prepared for in the appropriate shoes (Boyd, 3).
So, in addition to the extra time it requires, it can also be a lot more difficult if you are not
prepared for the extra walking or biking back and forth to the bus or TRAX.
At a meeting with the public in August, 2014, the public challenged the 15 UTA board
members to ride only public transportation for exactly a week. However, there were only three
board members that accepted their challenge and completed it: Nina Christensen, Keith
Bartholomew, and Greg Hughes. An article from Fox 13 News from September 24, 2014 talks
about this challenge and the results of it. The UTA board chair, David Burton, claimed that I
ride transit quite often, but he also stated that Will I commit to riding transit exclusively for
one week? No, I cant do that and fulfill my other obligations (Boyd). This article also claims
that Burton, and other board members dont feel that they need to accept the challenge in order to
understand the problems that UTA is dealing with. They say that they understand the service
needs to be improved, but some people question their ability to act on such a statement. UTA has

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expanded a lot to the western side of the valley. This seems like part of a practical solution to a
particular transit problem because that is where the highest population of people that need it
lives. But people who live further on the eastern side of the valley do not have as good of access
to bus stops and TRAX as those people. Stereotypically the people living on the east side have
more money and more cars, therefore to help cut the winter pollution UTA would need to
remove many of those cars from the road. Their expansion to the west to assist people who do
not have cars is a noble cause, helping people get around town, but it is not helping reduce
pollution by reducing the number of cars on the road.
There are a lot of cars on the road today in the Salt Lake Valley. Anyone who has to
drive in the 5 pm commute knows this is a problem, especially if the goal is the reduction of
pollution during the winter. Although riding the bus may not seem like it would take that many
cars off the road, on average during the day there seem to be about fifteen to twenty-five people
on the bus. In cars on the road that is about fifteen to twenty-five cars per bus taken off the road.
The bus is doing a very good job at taking cars off the road and helping reduce traffic.

The smog problem that exists in the Salt Lake Valley is very bad and seems to be getting
worse. The smog is unhealthy for people to breathe and live in and people are looking for a way
to improve the air quality because of their desperation for cleaner air. The UTA transit system
has been proposed as a solution to this problem and I have evaluated for others for its practicality
as a solution in its current state by using travel time, cost, traffic reduction and coverage. I have
found that in its current condition it is not a practical solution to the smog problem. Based on the
number of people who ride it now and the criteria from this paper, it can be concluded that
people would rather drive their own cars than ride UTA as it is right now.

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Works Cited
1. Litman, Todd. Evaluating Public Transit Benefits and Costs: Best Practices Guidebook.
Victoria Transport Policy Institute. August 31, 2014. 85-86.
2. DART First State. The Environmental Benefits of Riding Public Transit. Division of
Waste and Hazardous Substances.
http://www.dnrec.delaware.gov/dwhs/info/Pages/OzonePublicTrans.aspx
3. Boyd, Robert. Riders ask UTA officials to try using only mass transit, 3 accept challenge.
FOX 13 Salt Lake City. Sep 24, 2014. http://fox13now.com/2014/09/24/riders-ask-utaofficials-to-try-using-only-mass-transit-3-accept-challenge/
4. Boyd, Robert. 3 UTA board members take up challenge, ride public transportation for 1
week. FOX 13 Salt Lake City. Sep 8, 2014. http://fox13now.com/2014/09/08/3-utaboard-members-take-up-challenge-ride-public-transportation-for-1-week/
5. McGranahan, Gordon. Murray, Frank. Air Pollution & Health in rapidly developing
countries. Earthscan Publications Ltd. United Kingdom. 2003 (SLCC Library)
6. State of Delaware. Division of Waste and Hazardous Substances. The Environmental
Benefits of Riding Public Transit.
http://www.dnrec.delaware.gov/dwhs/info/Pages/OzonePublicTrans.aspx