This is interesting, at least to me:
UTA to offer 10-minute Blue Line service for Christmas shoppers
Link:
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/8...rs.html?pg=all
It is, unfortunately, only on Saturdays, after 4PM.
I've always wondered why UTA doesn't have a 4th 'change day' and schedule change just for the holiday season. I know a lot of people whose only experience with UTA is the annual train ride to Temple Square and downtown during December. It's UTA's prime time, and trains are regularly packed.
Have a new schedule begin on Black Friday and end New Year's Eve. Have it be the regular schedule for TRAX and FrontRunner, plus a heavily expanded evening schedule. Have FrontRunner run every half hour until 11:00 PM. Get at least the Blue Line, if not all of them, running the 10 minute schedule from the evening commute to midnight. Publish the schedule in a fun pamphlet that includes more information about riding UTA than regular schedules do, so that people will have something to take home and help them/remind them to take transit during the rest of the year.
Basically, just put on a good show while you're in the limelight. I've heard too many sad stories of people who have traveled into SLC on FrontRunner just fine to see the lights, but then get to the station on their way home to find that they just missed a train by 10 minutes, and because it is the last train of the night, which comes 90 minutes after the previous one, they have to wait an hour and 20 minutes on the cold concrete platform with their tired and hungry little kids - and then that last train was standing-room only because so many other people did the same thing...
This is one of those 'low hanging fruits,' where the return on investment is huge. Running more trains isn't that expensive, and the public support UTA can gain by demonstrating competency, efficiency, convenience, and style during the holidays can make the difference between ballot measures passing or failing.
So this is a good step, but I want MORE!