Bike Utah Valley

Image Courtesy of UTA

This past week I read this interesting article about the Wasatch Front Regional Council’s(WFRC) plans for Foothill Boulevard in SLC.  The article talks about the desire of the Salt Lake City council to have a light rail line on that route instead of reversing lanes and BRT.  I am very pleased to see the vision of the council on this issue, but they may be fighting a loosing battle, at least until this new administration gets its feet under it, and perhaps a lot longer if the highway and auto lobby’s have their way.  This is why.  When an entity such as WFRC or MAG, which are the regional transportation planning agencies, go to plan transportation infrastructure, they look at population densities as part of their process to determine what to build.  Population density determines what gets built as does zoning and population projections.  These entities, called Metropolitan Planning Organizations or MPO’s, determine what to study based on population projections as well.  So, by estimating population increases based on computer models and looking at city zoning, they decide what type of transportation infrastructure to build.  By decree from the Feds, if density is low, you build a road.  If traffic along the corridor is projected to be heavy, you build a big road.  So, by examining all of the current zoning in the vast majority of this country, not to mention Utah or Utah County, we will automatically build roads.  This seems on its face to be perfectly rational and logical.  But I submit that it is not.  Let’s look at the results. If you build a road that is five or seven lanes wide, like many of the new roads being built in Utah county, you can carry a lot of traffic.  If you build that road to mostly empty country such as Saratoga Springs, Eagle Mountain, and other such places, you allow people easy access to vacant land and they will build there.  They will build large homes that are on 1/4 acre lots,or bigger, and they will commute to work.   If on the other hand you build light rail out to those communities and only a two or three lane road, people will build smaller homes much closer together so they can be closer to the train station.  More walkable communities tend to develop.  If you do the same thing in more developed places, like Orem and Provo, redevelopment occurs.  Density, the all important catalyst of transit investment soon follows.  Basically, we have two self-fulfilling prophecies going on here.  If you build roads you get sprawl.  If you build trains, you get walkable compact development.  The problem is, the Feds won’t allow transit unless density requirements are met, and they won’t be met around here, unless there is a catalyst.  Great chicken and egg story right?  So, now you know why there will likely not be light rail on Foothill.  In speaking to the team doing the studies on the Provo-Orem BRT, I learned a valuable lesson.  If Orem changed its zoning along University Parkway to allow mixed use higher density development in place of strip malls and big box stores, we would be in line to easily qualify for Light Rail instead of BRT.  As it is, we don’t have the density.  Density is, by the way, the worst seven letter word you can ever say in a place like a Utah County neighborhood meeting.  Let me know what you think we should have.  Would you rather live in a townhouse or condo with a great park nearby and the ability to walk or ride a bike or take transit everywhere, or would you rather have the 1/4 acre lot in Eagle Mountain and a long commute?  I really would like to know.