54-year-old Tim Wager is close to getting his associate degree in social work, his continuing education licensure and his behavioral health technician certification.
However, one thing has added difficulty to the last part of his journey. Wager is blind and utilizes Utah Transit Authority’s paratransit system as well as the On Demand service to get to different campuses.
“When I had to go to Herriman, which is this semester, I have [had] to take paratransit to Daybreak and then get [the] On Demand ride to the Herriman campus,” Wager said. “So, it’s kind of time consuming and quite the process; you never know if you’re going to be on time or not.”
Wager described the steps he must go through when booking rides with UTA.
“You have to call an hour before you need to ride,” he said. “They want you to do it on the app solely, but I’m blind and I always have complications with it.”
Waiting can be a frustrating process, according to Wager.
“There’s a minimum of an hour window for pick-up, so if I got to be somewhere at 9:00, the window starts at 8:00, regardless of where I’m going; unless it’s further away,” Wager said. “If I’m not outside by 8:05, they’re free to leave; but [they] have all of the half-hour plus an extra 15 minutes, [to arrive] so they have 45 minutes to show up before there’s an issue.”
The long waiting times have impacted Wager’s education.
“If I get there a little bit late and say there’s a presentation in the class, you know, I can’t go in the class when they’ve already started,” Wager said. “So, I’ll miss the presentation.”
Research indicates that a lack of reliable transportation is not an uncommon issue for college students.
“It takes so much out of your day, the majority of people that take transit are having to plan around it,” said Carmen Godfrey, an urban ecology major at the University of Utah. “Unless you’re living right by a station, you’re having to do multiple connections, and each way is going to take like, three or four times as long as whatever you drive is.”
Colleges and universities are helping to lower students’ transportation costs by offering subsidies and by negotiating discounts with local transit systems for their students, one study has found.
More ways SLCC and UTA have collaborated
These concerns have not gone on deaf ears. Salt Lake Community College has provided students with a free UTA pass via their student OneCard. With this, students can have unlimited access to UTA’s bus, train, and FrontRunner services. According to Wager, SLCC has also improved help with students who use the paratransit system.
“They started in spring semester, providing some passes for the paratransit, because the regular bus pass doesn’t count for paratransit,” Wager said.
Curtis Larsen, the assistant vice president of Student Services, discussed how SLCC and UTA could help.
“We actually did a ride-along with some folks from UTA […] to kind of share their perspectives of many of our refugee students who aren’t driving yet, or can’t afford a vehicle, or a combination of the two,” Larsen said.
The ride also took the group to other SLCC campuses that students don’t have much access to through UTA.
“I think Westpointe and Herriman [campuses] currently are the hardest to get to,” Larsen said. “And they [UTA] noticed the southwest corner of the valley has grown in a way that makes transportation important for a lot of people.”
The south end of the valley is growing rapidly. According to the World Population Review, Herriman has grown by 9.1% since its last census in 2020, while South Jordan has grown by 11.24%.
UTA’s plan for the future
In May 2024, UTA came out with their Route Restoration & Equity Index project. This project is meant to guide service planning decisions, particularly concerning the restoration of routes post-COVID-19.
It will also make transit access more affordable for all community members, with a focus on historically underserved communities.
“That’s part of the community and public engagement we’re working on,” said Alivia Vaughns, a strategic planner with UTA. “So, going with stakeholders that focus on historically underserved populations; and figuring out what those transit barriers are and transit needs.”
Vaughns is also aware of issues riders face in communities with little to no transit stops, which can be linked to street network connectivity; this is best seen in cities like Herriman or South Jordan.
“You see a lot [of lack of network connectivity] especially more in the suburbs and the outer areas where it just ends in cul-de-sacs,” Vaughns said. “And one thing, especially for having a successful bus network, is you want to have more of that grid connectivity where people can get to different places … They have to walk through 10 blocks to get to one main street.”
According to Vaughns, there are ways to combat this long-distance walking problem.
“Having the developers work with UDOT as we [UTA] work with them, it’s really the overall partnership of communicating,” Vaughns said. “It’s like ‘Okay, we’re doing this well, we should keep this in mind for the future with connecting to this area.’”
UTA also has plans to improve bus stops with their UTA Moves 2050 plan, with ways to put in more transit stops, including putting in a frequent service bus network that will run through the southwest part of the valley.
“Over the next couple of years, we’ll be updating the long-range transit plan, so there’ll be a lot of engagement opportunities,” Vaughns said. “We want everyone to get their input on what they’d like to see.”
