FILE - A TRAX train carries passengers on Main Street in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2018. A man is in custody after allegedly breaking a window on a TRAX train on Thursday, Oct. 27, 2022. (Ravell Call/Deseret News)
RIVERTON, Utah — Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs claimed last week that the Utah Transit Authority has shown a lack of support for the southwest part of Salt Lake County. Staggs said UTA does not provide proper transit options to the area, leaving residents with only rideshare options.
“The areas here in my city, Riverton, Riverton, Herriman and Bluffdale have absolutely no bus stops. No transit stops, truck stops stations, nothing,” said Staggs.
UTA said in a statement that they examine, “data such as ridership trends, residential housing density, daytime population, operational capacity and customer feedback to determine a strategic and holistic approach to delivering transit choices systemwide.”
UTA also said other factors taken into consideration are job density, student population and tourism.
Staggs, who joined the local advisory council for UTA in March, said the populations of South Jordan, Riverton, Herriman and Bluffdale are a little over 200,000 people. The same as Salt Lake City. Staggs said that even though the populations are similar, there is a major disparity.
“We found that Salt Lake City has 32% of all the fixed bus stops or stations, and 48% of all the rail stations in the county. And they account for 50% of all the boardings. All of the people that are riding UTA, 50% of them are within Salt Lake City,” said Staggs
Comparatively, Staggs found that 2% of all boardings and 2-5% of all bus stops and track stations were found in the southwest area of Salt Lake County. Something he said correlates between ridership and track/bus stop availability.
Staggs recently took to Facebook to post about the disparities between southwest Salt Lake County and Salt Lake City.
Chris Jacobs contributed to this story.