stop the legacy highway

 

...................	Where Are We Going? And Why Are We in This Handbasket? That sentiment, sighted on a bumper sticker, sums up the dilemma the Wasatch Front faces as we contemplate our future. The powers that be would have us continue the road building frenzy that has characterized the past. For your consideration is an alternative vision of what the Wasatch Front would look like if we embraced mass transit. Much has been made of Envision Utah's four growth scenarios. The scenarios play an important role in educating us to the complexities of growth planning: Vehicle Miles Traveled. Infrastructure costs per new resident. Density figures. Zoning requirements. The limits to growth are implicit in the scenarios, if you look for them. All the scenarios assume an inexorable growth rate: 2.7 million people in the 10 counties that make up the Wasatch Front and Back by the year 2020. Five million people by the year 2050. The biggest component of any growth scenario is transportation. How are that many more people going to get to work, school or play? Two of the scenarios envision massive highway construction to build our way out of traffic congestion, spending tens of billions of dollars on roads that will eat up the last open spaces to accomodate cars that will pollute the last breathable air. The other two scenarios project highway construction at about the present rate. None of the scenarios adequately address the problem of air quality. What it comes down to is that we don't have enough clean air for several million more people and the cars they expect to drive. While we live downwind of one of the largest, least polluted airsheds in the nation--northern Nevada and Southeastern Oregon--our weather patterns don't always bring that air to us when we need it. The basins and ranges that characterize the geography along the Wasatch Front frequently trap pollution in the basin for days or weeks. Imagine what it will be like during a typical winter inversion with two-and-a-half times as much pollution. Only scenario D projects spending more than a pittance on mass transit and it only projects $5 billion over 20 years. What would the Wasatch Front be like in 20 years if we went for a truly massive transit program? Imagine, if you will, a future where families like yours and mine can survive with only one car, or maybe none at all. What would such a city look like? Businesses are situated to encourage walking and mass transit access. Convenience stores are conveniently located. Delivery services, using mass transit, make shopping by phone or internet practical for most of our daily shopping activities. Shoppers can arrange for same-day delivery of large items they purchase at the mall. Ubiquitous restaurant delivery services make dining in easier than ever. School and church parking lots are freed up to build parks and playing fields convenient to schools and homes, allowing soccer parents free time to actually participate in their children's upbringing, rather than spend time playing chauffeur. Main line light rail and bus stops are serviced every four to eight minutes during peak hours. All stops are serviced at least every half hour through the night to accommodate shift workers. (Technologies exist today to provide real-time schedule information as well as analysis of usage patterns to change those schedules as needed.) Global Positioning Satellite receivers keep track of the progress of every mass transit vehicle. Up-to-the-minute bus and light rail schedules are available at every stop and can be accessed over the phone, internet, cell phones and pagers. We aren't dependent on the whims of the weather as to whether we'll have fresh air to breathe or we'll such on exhaust pipes for another week. There's a sports utility vehicle in every garage, used only for sports utility excursions--ski trips, vacations, driving on snowy days and occasional family outings. Alongside that SUV in the garage is a Zero-emission vehicle for those days you really need to drive, and a couple of bikes or mopeds. The massive transit system is named after the politician who had the vision and determination to set us on a path to a sustainable, livable future. It's a legacy to be proud of. Magnet schools like the arts and performance high schools that New York and other cities have established are located next to light rail lines so that students from the entire Wasatch Front can attend without paupering the public education budget. (Currently the state spends $50 million a year to run and maintain its school bus fleet that only runs twice a day. A massive transit system allows this money to be put toward education instead of transportation.) Light rail lines are located along large concentrations of dwellings and jobs. (No one will want to take light rail to go shopping unless mass transit is their only transit. So light rail along commercial strips doesn't make sense.) Too costly? Achieving such a future would take a commitment akin to the money that has been funneled into highways in the past. The state of Utah currently spends about three quarters of a billion dollars a year on highways--one out of every eight dollars the state spends altogether. This is a combination of federal gas tax funds, state gas tax funds, state sales tax funds and borrowing. The exact route of any of these proposed lines will be a matter of debate. Everyone with half an acre will want light rail to run past their property. Everyone with 20 acres will want to sell a quarter of it for light rail right-of-way, so that the remaining 15 acres will be on the line. A better solution would be to put it on publicly owned rights-of-way. Old State Street, running through most of the densest parts of the Wasatch Front, would make an excellent route down through Utah County. North of Bountiful, the Leavitt Lakehsore Line could follow the old Rio Grande right-of-way. This runs about a mile west of I-15. If the Leavitt Line were built, the land savings would be in the tens of square miles. Single-occupancy handbaskets Many things have to change to make this future a reality, not the least of which is the belief that we must be slaves to automobiles. Forty years of planning and building have yielded an urban landscape where only a minority of people live within easy walking distance of the goods and services they need. The average car costs thousands of dollars a year to operate, with car payments, repairs, insurance, propery taxes and fuel. Add to that sales-tax dollars and money borrowed against future tax revenue to pay for highway construction. Sounds great; but how much will it cost? First, let's look at what our political leaders might be willing to spend over the next 20 years. Let's look at the price tags on Envision Utah's scenarios:
	Scenario A: $37.6 billion Scenario B: $29.8 billion Scenario C: $22.1 billion Scenario D: $23.0 billion
	Most of these expenditures are for highways For $10-$15 billion, a truly massive transit system could be put in place. The accompanying chart and maps show the costs and routes for potential light rail lines. Such a system would be augmented with busses running on collector and shuttle routes. No small part of the cost of this should be shared by the communities that mass transit goes through. The increase in density and property values, as parking lots are converted to housing and office space, will be a boon to cities that embrace massive transit. What will it take to achieve such a future? Things won't happen unless they are pushed. We need to look at what we want our future to look like. As it is, we re being presented with a limited range of options. We need to consider all possibilities. We need to let politicians know where we want to go. We need to lead, not follow. We are going to have to face increased densities unless we want Skull Valley, Tremonton and Vernal to be bedroom communities for Salt Lake City. We are slaves to a dream that we can never achieve. The sooner we wake up, the sooner reality will become livable. by John deJong associate editor of Catalyst magazine and an industrial engineer by training