The State of Deseret

More on 4-10's

2008-07-18T08:24:00.002-06:00

It sounds like the gov made the decision, announced it and left it to everyone else to work out the details and here. Most state employees that I have talked with are fine with the holiday decision although most would have liked to of had a voice in the decision. I think that is what most employees are upset about, the lack of choice they had in this decision. I have no problem with any of it, maybe that's why I think the gov went about it the right way. If he would have sent out the survey and had conversation before he made the decision, it would be a year before any decision was made.

I think that the holiday policy is great. My first holiday working for the state, I was working four-tens, so I put down ten hours on the holiday, it only made sense to me. I was working four-tens, I get ten hours on a holiday. Well the payroll guy gave me a call and told me to fix it. While I was working four-tens I would have to either work the two extra hours or take vacation time to make up on holiday weeks. I have no problem giving up two holidays for 52 Fridays.

Utah might have been the first state but it looks like others are considering the four-ten work week, Colorado and Arizona are talking about it. Many municipalities are working four-tens while many more are thinking about it.

I wounder how long it will take before we see any savings?

4 10's

2008-07-09T09:35:00.000-06:00

By now just about everyone has heard of the Governor's plan to have All non-critical state employees work four tens. It's been interesting for me as a state employee to listen to, read and partake in the dialog following the govs announcement.

The first thing I need to discuss is that I sense a strong belief in the "lazy government worker" stereotype from reading comments on the Trib and Des news websites and talking with friends and acquaintances. I will agree that government has it's share of lazy workers, but I have worked in the private sector with it's fare share of lazy workers. Many people have replied that they have been working five tens and would love to work only four tens, many of my friends tell me this. To them I say, sounds fine with me and I'll take your salary!

The fact is that many government workers work just as hard as anyone in the private sector. For those who work overtime most do not get paid for the overtime they work (its not in the budget). They work overtime because they are not allowed to hire more workers and so are doing the work of two or three employees. Remember we do have to make it look like we have a small government.

From state employees I have heard everything from joy to resentment, but I hear that on a daily bases for just about any issue. I have co-workers who are in a constant state of disappointment. I started working for the state at four twelves a ten and a four or five, eventually down to four tens. When I went back to school I started my current schedule that I love and will dearly miss, five whatevers as long as I get my forty+ and my work done. I don't mind the four tens I just really love the five whatevers.

Radio West did a great show on four tens the other day. I thought it brought up some interesting aspects from both sides. I have always thought that four tens were more productive then five eights. Thats one less day of morning chatter and afternoon chatter, one less day of spending the morning turning the computer on (that takes a lot longer then it should), I'm already there, working, in the middle of something what's another two hours?

The one less day of driving doesn't do much for me, I live two miles from work and take the bus about half the time. UTA needs to step up and change bus schedules, that has been the biggest complaint that I have heard besides child care is that employees that have been taking the bus will have to drive. They won't "have" to drive but because they will miss the express buses their commute time home triples.

I'm sure that this will save the State money which is good because although I'm a state employee I still pay taxes. (I think many people forget this little detail). I don't believe that it will save employees money from driving less, they will use the extra day to run errands and such, driving just as much if not more.

In the big picure, I'm not sure why we are stuck working in a confined amount of time? One of the guest on the Radio West broadcast points out that with crackberries and laptops employees are working at home, on weekends and on vacation. They are also taking care of personal issues during work hours, paying bills online and personal phone calls.

What I loved about my five whatevers is I don't have to be in the office for forty hours to get my work done. We should be more concerned about the quality and quantity of work being done and less concerned about how much time we spent in our office.

Word of the Day

2008-06-27T17:08:00.003-06:00

This is a fun site! Summarizes the talk on the big Hill in one word.

Construction

2008-05-01T17:52:00.003-06:00

I haven't kept this blog updated as much as I would like and I'm not sure what direction I want this blog to take. I'm trying to find a layout that I like and then I will have to decide what to blog about if anything.

Be kind to immigrants

2008-02-18T22:01:00.005-07:00

I know this was so last week. I'm a bit slow on things.

Sitting in Sunday school last week an interesting topic came up for Sunday school, immigration, after reading 2 Nephi Chapter 1. Many of the older (70+) crowd started complaining about the "Latinos" taking over the country, breaking laws and all sorts of other things. After a few minutes of this another older man spoke up and pointed to these verses:

2 Nephi Chapter 1
6 Wherefore, I, Lehi, prophesy according to the workings of the Spirit which is in me, that there shall none come into this land save they shall be brought by the hand of the Lord.
7 Wherefore, this a land is consecrated unto him whom he shall bring. And if it so be that they shall serve him according to the commandments which he hath given, it shall be a land of liberty unto them; wherefore, they shall never be brought down into captivity; if so, it shall be because of iniquity; for if iniquity shall abound cursed shall be the land for their sakes, but unto the righteous it shall be blessed forever.

This cooled things off a bit.

When a General Authority comes out and suggest to a mainly LDS legislature to "slow down, step back and carefully study and assess the implications and human costs involved" you would think that the LDS members of the legislature would give heed. Instead they have justified
their actions and question why the church doesn't just come out with a clearer statement.

My favorite argument
"is ok to brake some laws?" "Will I get an ecclesiastical pass for breaking other laws or is only immigration law declared invalid?"
"Honor, obey, and sustain the law, but only if you're a legal LDS U.S. resident. If you're illegal, then the bishop can give you a wink and validate your fraudulent perjury-plagued status."

The Trib comment section is full of these. Which makes no sense to me other then all the anti-mormons are also anti-immigrant?

Maybe the legislature should draw up a resolution calling for Congress to address the real underlying issues of immigration. Why are all of these people coming here? Leaving their homes, safety, family to travel across a desert to a strange land with the possibility of dying on the way. When they get here they work any job they can get (watch "Fast Food Nation") working for next to nothing only to send the money home. Non of this makes sense unless where they come from is so bad in the first place. Maybe if we work on fixing the issues that cause them to leave we wouldn't have so many immigrants here to worry about.

The Utah lawmakers should make it easier for those who are here to declare themselves here so that we know who is here and where they are at. Instead they are forcing the immigrants to stay in the shadows and adding more stress to their lives.

Mother May I?

2008-02-15T00:05:00.006-07:00

So its been nearly a year since my last post, not like any one reads my blog anyway. I think there is something about the legislative session that pushes me to write a blog. The things those fools do up there are amazing! You know I don't think you could make some of this stuff up.

I'm not sure what's so hard about making it a felony to seriously abuse an animal? Ohh, wait it is......if....they have been convicted of animal abuse once before in the last five years. Nice.

Really I have to know who votes in West Jordan? I would like to meet those responsible for Nutters Buttars and slap them in the back of the head. Honestly do you just show up at the poll and pick the Republican? What an embarrassment! I think the last thing anyone would want to do right now is admit that they vote in West Jordan. I guess it's bad enough they have to live there.

The Utah legislature is full of small minded, hate filled, vindictive evil men, not all of them but enough of them that I feel I can generalize. They hate the idea of someone else doing something (because they do so much of nothing).

The gov goes off and signs a non-binding deal with a bunch of other govs to lower emissions, the legislators draft a bill that requires the gov to get their permission before he does anything like that again. What was he thinking?
Mother may I?

The Mayor of SLC decides to put together a domestic partner registry, you would think he used the BoM as toilet paper. Now there's a bill outlawing that. Even though the SLC council passed the registry unanimously, meaning that the majority of the citizens who are supposedly represented by the city council are in favor of the registry.
Mother may I?

I should help Curtis write a bill, this one would require all county and city councils run agendas past the legislature and get their ok before passing anything. No decisions can be made with out mother first making sure it's whats best. I believe this would save a lot of time and tax payer money in the long run. There would be a lot less laws on the books and the legislature would have more time in the session to actually get something accomplished. We will call this bill the Mother May I bill.

I would have to say though that my favorite is the conflict of interest. All they have to do is state that there is or might be a conflict. Thats it. They are required by law to vote on all bills.

I love this time of year!!

Sad Day

2007-05-22T22:36:00.000-06:00

This story broke my heart. I do not know the family but my heart goes out to them.

Dad and daughter, 5, killed in crosswalk near kindergarten

By Michael N. Westley
The Salt Lake Tribune

Article Last Updated: 05/22/2007 06:36:39 AM MDT

Don Ostler just wanted to get his 5-year-old daughter, Gwyndalyn, to afternoon kindergarten safely.
The pair were in a crosswalk to cross 1300 East near 5300 South in Murray Monday and had nearly reached the opposite curb when they were struck by a southbound car about 12:30 p.m., said police Detective Kenny Bass.
The impact of the crash threw both Ostlers several feet. Paramedics worked to revive the pair but were unsuccessful, Bass said. The 29-year-old man and daughter were pronounced dead at the scene.
The girl's grandmother, Nancy Ostler, told KSL Channel 5 News that the girl was about to turn 6 and already knew she wanted to be a doctor.
"If my granddaughter had to go to heaven, I'm glad it was my son that would take her," Nancy Ostler said. "My son did not have to die today. My tiny grandbaby did not have to die today."
The driver of the car, whom Bass said was an 86-year-old man, has been questioned by police.
Witnesses told police the car rolled right through the crosswalk where the Ostlers were walking, Bass said.
"The witnesses weren't indicating anything about speed," Bass said.
Nancy Ostler told KSL she had reviewed police reports, which made it appear as though the elderly man was not fit to be driving. "I have worked with the elderly before," Ostler said. "There's a time you need to say, 'I just can't be on the road.' "
Initial testing did not reveal the presence of drugs or alcohol on the driver, said the detective, but the case will be reviewed with prosecutors for possible charges.
mwestley@sltrib.com

It is a sad state of affairs that we rely so heavily on our vehicles to get us around. While everyone will be blaming the 86 year old man for driving when he obviously shouldn’t be (and he is to blame), no one will mention that without a drivers license he is a prisoner in his own home. We have set up our society so that those who do not or cannot drive are punished to use our substandard transit system or be stranded in their homes. Our houses are far from shopping, eating establishments, post offices and gathering places.

As medicine continues to advance more people will be driving at older ages then ever before. There will be an increase in these horrific unnecessary slaughters. We need to change how we build our cities, prioritizing people over cars.

We need to build cities where senior citizens are able to walk or easily ride transit to get to the doctors or stores.

We need to build cities where a father can safely walk his daughter home from school without dying.

Silly Notions

2007-04-11T22:50:00.000-06:00

I don’t understand people and where they get their silly notions, such as the notion that condos will bring down their property values and that high density is bad. The silliest notion is thinking that a commuter rail station is going to bring your property values down. I just don’t see it happening in Woods Cross, it hasn’t happened anywhere else in the state or the country so I don’t see why Woods Cross would be any different. To me this is a win win situation. If they don’t want to live within walking distance of a commuter rail station that will take them all over the Wasatch Front then they can sell their homes for at the very least double what they bought them for.

Why did they wait until now to start complaining? Woods Cross has been working with UTA for over two years now. If they say they didn’t know about the transit station and where the parking lot was going to be, it’s because they don’t pay attention and maybe they should attended City Planning and Council meetings.

I will be surprised if homes are still there in ten years. Just like all other stations in Salt Lake and around the country, condos, apartments, offices and retail will pop up all around the station.

Sky Bridge Debacle

2007-04-04T23:34:00.000-06:00

To me this is not a hard choice.

No sky bridge.

This will impede the view from Main Street. The view is something that city forefathers had enough common sense to preserve and to put the preservation of it into the city code by not allowing sky bridges. If we allow this one it will be that much easier for the next developer to build one. We are going to allow “the church” a variance to build a sky bridge but not the next guy? How is that going to look in front of a judge?

Sky bridges are fun and neat but not necessary for the city creek center to go forward and to function. If it is going to draw the crowds the developer says it’s going to bring into Salt Lake, something like 10million then the “mall” will succeed without the bridge. The developer is trying to tell us that 10 million people are going to decide not to shop at the center because there is no sky bridge?

Plus all the other reasons not to build a sky bridge.

On a side note, how well will that retractable glass ceiling do during an earthquake?

Legislative Rant

2007-03-23T00:05:00.000-06:00

It’s been a busy month for me at work and the flu for a week all but did me in, seems like the end of the legislative session always wears me down.

What I love most about the Utah legislature besides how they waste time is the fact that they love nothing more then to legislate local issues. They hate it when the feds get in their business but they have no problems getting all up into the locals, especially Salt Lake City and the County. Salt Lake County according to the Govs Office in 2005 had just fewer than 1 million; the entire State had just over 250 million. Salt Lake County is 38% of the States population and we have legislatures from rural areas telling the city and county what they can and cannot do? Try telling the rural folk what to do; you would think the world is coming to an end. I think that the County is responsible enough to make its own decisions without the help from the State legislature. Hopefully next year they will focus more on State issues and less on how to punish Salt Lake.

I know that the session has been over for a while but I hadn’t had a chance to rant about it. So there it is.

Capital Parking

2007-03-22T23:22:00.000-06:00

I thought that the purpose of tearing out the old parking lot at the State Capital was to put in a garage and add more parking for the employees and visitors. As it is now there is not enough parking for the employees, forget about when the legislature is in. Come to find out they are not putting in a parking garage but only beautifying the parking area, in the end there will be less parking. I suppose that parking and access to your legislatures is less important then a good looking capital complex.

Salt Lake Arena?

2007-02-08T21:30:00.000-07:00

I have no problems with soccer, I even watched the World Cup and soccer clips on Youtube. But I am beyond tired of Dave Checketts and this soccer stadium hoopla that is being forced upon us. This is the most pressing issue that the legislature has to deal with?

Forget payday lending, health care, the budget, let’s drop everything before the baby with the ball takes his game somewhere else. Checketts is worse then my 3 year old. Why is it our business to pay for his? If his business plan is so great why isn’t Energy Solutions tripping over themselves to put their name on the arena?

With Salt Lake county taxpayers paying for the stadium are they going to call it the Salt Lake arena?

It would only be right.

When they came for the Mormons

2007-02-08T21:24:00.000-07:00

Some one needs to send this quote to the good Senator of West Jordan R- Chris Buttars.

When the Legislature came for the homosexuals,
I remained silent;
I was not gay.

When they outlawed abortions,
I remained silent;
I was not pro-choice.

When they came for evolutionist,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Darwinist.

When they came for the Mormons,
there was no one left to speak out.

Sen. Buttars has no problem taking away rights from everyone else but when some kid in a CTR shirt gets kicked out of school he’s the first one to shout foul. It amazes me that the people of West Jordan continue to vote to keep this guy in office.

Against Word of Wisdom

2007-02-01T22:06:00.000-07:00

The Trib was full of good ones today. Another classic

Over the edge

Public Forum Letter

Article Last Updated: 01/31/2007 07:52:59 PM MST

The decision by the Legislature to cut funding for the Utah Department of Environmental Quality makes me want to drive my Prius off of a cliff.
Aren't the legislators aware we have had a record number of "red" days this year?
Weren't they listening to the radio when a member of the national news media, who was here for the Sundance Film Festival, said he was shocked when he flew into the Salt Lake International Airport because it looked just like flying into Mexico City?
Haven't they heard that breathing the bad air, with its damaging fine particulates, is like smoking cigarettes?

Actually, breathing the highly polluted air should be against the Mormon "Word of Wisdom." If the legislators really considered the ill effects of living in a polluted environment, they would now be voting to increase funding for DEQ.

Elaine Nielson
Salt Lake City

Tailpipe Taliban

2007-02-01T21:57:00.000-07:00

Best letter to the Editor ever!!!!

From the Trib

ATV agitators

Public Forum Letter

Article Last Updated: 01/31/2007 07:52:59 PM MST

As a resident of Wayne County, I'm angered beyond belief that the dealership-funded agitators of USA-ALL (formerly the Utah Trail Machine Association) are again attempting to turn the Factory Butte region into a dirt digger's Disneyland. A Jan. 22 Tribune article said that recent all-terrain vehicle restrictions spurred a county commission proposal to open 190,000 acres to unrestricted riding.
There are at least 50,000 miles of legal ATV trails in Utah, and acrobatic riders already have "Swing Arm City," 2,600 acres of the most beautiful and extreme terrain, designated for open use. Now they're attempting to portray pirate-grabbed land as "traditional use areas," critical to the local economy, and "family bonding." In truth, most of these areas never saw tracks until the last 5 to 10 years, and the core user group is tiny.
This isn't about public access; it's about an extreme-terrain park, which would make better sense near Tooele, Richfield or Grand Junction, where most of the agitators live. Of course, anyone with the audacity to object to their internal-combustion caliphate will receive ridicule and death threats. That's because the Utah Shared Access Alliance is really the Tailpipe Taliban.

Steve Howe
Torrey

If you build it, they will ride it

2007-01-26T19:55:00.000-07:00

U students pick TRAX
Skyrocketing mass transit use cuts costs, saves space

It makes no sense that we are still pushing roads over rail. The University TRAX line has shown us that if you build it they will ride it.

Before the completion of TRAX, U of U officials were trying to find ways of providing enough parking for the students. Parking issues were in the Utah Daily Chronicle everyday from letters to the editor, complaining about the lack of parking to front page stories covering the fact that more parking passes were sold than their were parking spaces. Now that I don’t attend the U of U, I don’t read the Chronicle much but it’s been a long time since I remember seeing anything about parking in it. U of U officials were contemplating building a multi-structure parking garage on campus with one possible location being the golf course.

Thanks to TRAX there is now an excess amount of parking, the best part being that the tax payers and students did not have to fund a parking garage. The space can be better used to place new buildings and/or green space.

An added bonus to all of this is there are fewer cars on the road, relieving traffic, 5,000 fewer cars on Foothill Blvd. Not only fewer cars on the road and in the parking lots for school but for football, basketball, gymnastics, the museum and other events held at the University.

When the commuter rail line is finished along with the West Valley and Jordan TRAX extensions, even more U of U parking will open up along with fewer cars on the road. Parking downtown for those who still drive downtown will be made easier, downtown traffic will be remain bearable as we add more people to the city.

Last week the Trib reported that officials were no longer considering the public transit aspect of the west side freeway, Mountain View (previously known as Legacy) Highway because they did not see the ridership there and it was not cost effective.

What came first the freeway or the shopping complex? If you build a freeway first, you will get the type of development that you get everywhere that feeds off of freeways. If you build mass transit first, you will get the type of development that is high density, fewer cars, less pollution, and less traffic. To build an eight lane freeway without a mass transit aspect is going backwards 50 years. TRAX lines in Salt Lake have shown us that there is an unmet need in our region for mass transit.

After the last couple weeks of the “inversion” it would be nice if more people used mass transit but that won't/can't happen until we have a mass transit system that allows everyone the choice between personal vehicle and mass transit.

Incredible Shrinking Government

2007-01-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

This is from the Senate Blog

The Incredible Shrinking Government

From December 2005 to December 2006, the population of the State of Utah grew by 2.7%. Total employment in the state grew 4.7%.

This sheet shows that the number of people employed by state government only grew 1.88%.

Bottom line: Your state government is shrinking as a percentage of the total Utah workforce and as a segment of the population as a whole.

The way this happens is that we don’t hire needed employees; we give the ones already working a heavier work load, and we hire contractors at twice the cost. So how is this helpful to the citizens of Utah? It looks good for the republican legislature to show their constituents that they are shrinking government, while they are paying more money for less work in the form of contractors and working the few employees they do have into the ground. Instead of allowing employees to do some things really good, they are so over burdened with work that they do lots of things just ok.

Taiwanese Style Politics

2007-01-19T18:00:00.000-07:00

Could you imagine if our State legislature did something like this? It would be great!! Just picture Rep. Becker throwing a shoe at Rep. Curtis who is surrounded by a group of Republicans on the podium.

Taiwanese Politics

State of the State

2007-01-17T21:20:00.000-07:00

The govs State of the State was a lack luster. I'm sure if we pulled up last years address it would be almost identical. The dems came out pretty quickly with a response , too bad the govs speech wasn't more like the dems response and even worse too bad the dems have no sway in getting any of their proposals considered.

One of the issues the dems mention that I believe is overlooked by the public is gerrymandering. Paul Rolly had a great piece in the trib the other day. It basically states that Utah democrats are under represented and I believe moderate republicans also. The controlling party has locked in their assurance to win an un-proportional amount of the districts and in doing so has given the extreme elements of the republican party (a minority) the majority of say in State policy.

This has got to come to an end!

Utah needs a bipartisan redistricting committee. 11 States now have bipartisan redistricting committees and two of them are our neighbors; Colorado and Idaho. If Idaho can have bipartisanship I don't see why Utah cannot.

I understand their are many priorities this year and other important issues need to be addressed but I believe this is important and deserves to be addressed. We cannot continue to ignore this issue and allow politicians to choose their constituents. We all deserve equal representation and as long as the Republicans continue to gerrymander our political districts, citizens in Utah will be denied that right.

Sierra Club top ten achievements of 2006

2007-01-10T21:27:00.000-07:00

The Utah Chapter of the Sierra Club listed their top ten achievements for 2006. At number one:

1. Sierra Club activists from around the country and national lobbyists helped persuade senators not to allow Senator Bennett's growth-on-steroids Washington County Growth & Conservation Act of 2006. Defeat of this bill means no public lands in Washington County sold to developers, and the revenues from such sales will not fund inappropriate development projects.

Sierra Club

While the Sierra club claims this as one of "their" victories and it was a marginal victory, I believe it had more to do with Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid then with the Sierra club or any other environmental group. At the same time the Washington County Growth & Conservation Act was being denied in committee the White Pine County Conservation, Recreation and Development Act flew right through. Both of these bills did pretty much the same thing in the same general region just in two different States. The reason I believe that Sen. Reid would not want the Washington County bill to pass is the lack of water for the region. Southern Utah is already fighting with Southern Nevada over water; neither can continue to grow at the rates they are now for much longer with out a secure, available, unlimited source of water.

A greater and more meaningful victory for the Sierra Club would have been if they had stopped both of these bills. As it is now Sen. Reid got his way (he did not help Senators Matheson and Bennett with their bill) and S. Nevada will continue to grow and will continue to take water from the already parched desert and impeding the growth of S. Utah.

The U.S will add another 100 million people in the next 30 to 40 years and they have to live somewhere. The middle of the desert is not the place for them, Las Vegas is about as middle of the desert as you can get right next to Phoenix. St. George would like to think that they are not in a desert, they do have some limited supplies of water, but no matter what they tell themselves they are in a desert and because of it growth is going to be limited. Unless new technology will allow us to make water out of air the growth that the Southwest has been seeing is going to have to slow if not stop all together.

Boise State National Champions

2007-01-09T07:43:00.000-07:00

The national champion should be Boise State. This is twice that a non-BCS team has broke into the system and beat a BCS team. Boise should have played Ohio St. Florida made it on a fluke when UCLA beat USC who would have been playing Ohio had they one that game.The reason why Boise state got to play the Big 12 Champs was that when Utah went to a BCS bowl they gave them some crappy Pitt team who Utah killed. So to try and prove that non-BCS teams don't belong in bowls the committee gave Oklahoma to Boise thinking that the sooners would walk all over the Broncos. That didn't happen. Boise could play with any team this year. What was BYU doing playing the fifth ranked Pack 10 team? They should have played Oklahoma the Big 12 champs while Boise played Ohio St., USC or Florida. Florida is not clearly the National Champions, there are to many questions. It will only take one or two more non-BCS teams to win in BCS bowls before they decide that a play-off system is the only way to determine with-out question who is Champion. It wouldn't take any longer then it does now and each team would only have to play a couple more games if they kept winning. But until they have a play-off there will never be a clear National Champion. This year Boise State is as much of a National Champion as Florida.

I'll take my ball and go home!

2007-01-05T21:25:00.000-07:00

trib article

I’m just waiting for Bishop to pick up his ball and go home. Now that he and his buddies in Washington are no longer in charge the rules they’ve been playing by for the last 12 years are now “railroading”. The difference between the Republicans and the Democrats running the show is that the Dems said they would play nice? Now that dems are in charge they decide to play like the repubs have and Bishops going complain about it because they “promised” to play fair?

Since when did Bishop become the moral compass?

“ ‘Open’ government may be ‘better,’ but it also may only be ‘voyeuristic’ government with all the hidden negatives,''

Affordable Housing

2007-01-03T22:00:00.000-07:00

The trib article "SLC debates housing policies" was interesting. I like mayor Corroon but it seems that he doesn't understand much about affordable housing. I was really surprised that he didn't support the policy to spread the affordable housing around. I just don't see how if the housing project isn't 100% affordable that it can't be built. Makes no sense to me. It seems that the county is doing the developer a favor in allowing them to mix housing.

100% affordable housing projects turn just into that, projects. Nobody wants those projects in their city, no one wants to live next to those projects. How many 100% housing projects are on the east side of the valley? The best socially responsible policy is to mix housing types. And all of this shows in that few of the new projects are 100% affordable. The Gateway is a mix housing project. I think that they tried 100% affordable housing, Mobile Home Parks, see how well that worked. Now we're kicking people out of their affordable homes.

I agree with the Crossroads Urban Center in that every project built should have affordable housing including projects around trax stops. I would think that especially around trax stops housing projects would be required to have affordable units.

Mormons and Heathens for a Better Utah

2007-01-03T21:52:00.000-07:00

I love the Canyon Country Zephyr and I have to share this article.

MAHBU forever!

Rail or Roads?

2006-12-11T20:03:00.000-07:00

So I was wrong to believe that Paul Mero had correct information on transit ridership. I assumed that he had done his homework and researched for his little opinion piece. A letter to the editor made me think twice about Meros numbers and with a quick search he was way off base. According to the US census and to wikipedia 4.5 million people use NYC transit system a day, about 54% of the population. Here is a nice little fact that Mero left out, "Ridership in the city increased 36% to 2.2 billion annual riders from 1995 to 2005, far outpacing population growth". More people are riding transit in NYC now then ever before. Personal vehicles are used for only 6% of shopping trips into Manhattan.

There are 36 cities in the US with 10% or more of its population using public transit.

Here are some interesting facts about transit

Transit-related congestion relief saves the nation nearly $20 billion annually.

Transit users save time for themselves and for all other road users.

A Federal Transit Administration study of six light-rail corridors found savings of:

Over 17,000 hours for transit riders each day,
22,000 hours daily for the remaining automobile drivers on the corridor itself,
$225 million in total savings annually.

30,000 passengers can be carried on a single U.S. subway line in one hour, ten additional highway lanes would be needed if those riders drove instead.

In Denver, 50 percent of light-rail commuters previously drove to work, and ridership on the light-rail system is 60 percent ahead of projected levels.

The DC-area Metro has generated nearly $15 billion in surrounding private development. Between 1980 and 1990, 40 percent of the region's retail and office space was built within walking distance of a Metro station.

I'm not sure why or how the Sutherland Institute is held as a credible source of information and why they are included in on policy discussions. An article by Paul Rolly in the trib points out to more inaccuracies associated with Sutherland.

As for the decline of transit in European countries, with a quick search I could no information to back that up. The only information I found in my short search was for Great Britain where it explains that public transit use declined from the 1950s but in the last five years has started to increase in numbers again.