Fed up with the commute
There are no comments for this page [ Add Comment ]Wednesday, October 3, 2007
By Mitch Shaw
Standard-Examiner staff
Utahns spend about 27 hours a year in traffic
As traffic continues to pile up in cities of all sizes, the day-to-day lives of Americans are changing as a direct result -- and Utah is no exception.
Americans waste about 38 hours each year stuck in traffic, costing the U.S. economy $78 billion in 4.2 billion lost hours and 2.9 billion gallons of wasted fuel, according to a national study by the Texas Transportation Institute.
Salt Lake City-area drivers spend less time stuck in traffic than the national average, but still lost about 27 hours to delays in 2005.
Of the 85 largest metropolitan areas in the study, the Salt Lake City area ranked 45th in traffic delays.
Jeff and Lindsay Bracken commute more than 70 miles a day from Syracuse to Salt Lake City and back. The time wasted in traffic has caused conflicts in family schedules.
"Our commute usually varies, but on a perfect day, it takes us an hour. On a bad day, it takes up to two hours," said Jeff Bracken. "We leave for work at 6 a.m. and usually get home about 6:30 p.m."
Jeff Bracken works at Associated Food Stores, and Lindsay Bracken works at the University of Utah. The
couple carpools together to save gas and help the environment, but still find themselves scrambling to fulfill family obligations.
"It's difficult to get home in time to get my 13-year-old daughter to whatever function she has going on," Jeff Bracken said.
Lindsay Bracken said her long commute can also have psychological effects.
"Sometimes it just gets depressing because I'm gone from my house for 12 hours," she said. "Then when we get home, we eat and then help my daughter with homework, and then it's pretty much time to go to bed. Then you realize you have to do it all over again the next day."
North Ogden resident Jay Lighthall commuted to the Salt Lake Surgical Center on 3900 South for more than 20 years.
In his time there, he put more than 100 miles a day on his car and usually spent about three hours on the freeway.
Last year, he purchased a UPS Store in North Ogden and now commutes little more than one mile a day.
"I look back on it now and think, 'How did I ever do that?' because it is stressful," Lighthall said. "But in time, you kind of grow numb to it. But now I dread the thought of driving to Salt Lake.
"More important than the money I spent on gas was the time I was wasting on the freeway," he said.
"On a good day, it would take me 55 minutes to get to work and an hour and a half to get home. Now I have an extra two or three hours of free time each day."
The transportation study indicates that some commuter traffic has been alleviated through increased use of public transportation. The study found that, among medium-sized cities, Salt Lake City commuters relied more heavily than most on public transportation to alleviate congestion.
Lighthall said he considered using public transportation while he worked in Salt Lake City, but it likely would have made his commute even longer.
"I could have taken the bus, but that only works if you work right downtown," he said. "I would have had to take a bus downtown and then get on another one to get to my office. By the time I'm done waiting for each bus, it probably would have doubled my commute."
Lighthall said something like commuter rail would have been a more viable option for him than buses.
The volume of traffic in Davis County has increased substantially during the past 10 years, according to a study by the Davis County Bureau of Economic and Business Research.
Data of Interstate 15 traffic counts through southern Davis County shows a 30 percent to 40 percent increase in daily traffic since 1996.
To help alleviate this congestion, more than $1.2 million in construction of new transportation infrastructure is under way in that county, according to Utah Department of Transportation officials.
The two major projects are the Legacy Parkway, a four-lane, 14-mile highway from Farmington that connects to Interstate 215, and the Utah Transit Authority FrontRunner, a commuter rail line from Pleasant View to Salt Lake City.
Numerous smaller UTA and UDOT projects are also under way to ease traffic congestion.
The UTA RideShare program is designed to promote carpooling, vanpooling and using bikes, buses and other alternatives to the one-car, one-driver scenario.
The RideShare program leases vans for vanpool use. It has 450 vanpools, with 80 groups on the waiting list. Hill Air Force Base is served by 125 of those vanpools.
Another way to ease congestion on Utah's freeways is simply not making the commute at all.
Wayne Leota, of Layton, works for IBM in Salt Lake City and makes the commute three times a week. He works from home the other two days.
"We have a lot of clients out of state, so we do a lot of business by phone anyway," he said. "You can actually be more productive when you work from home because you don't waste any time driving."
Leota began working from home four years ago and said his lifestyle changed dramatically.
"Having those two days where I know I don't have to drive to work has been great," he said. "My quality of life seems to have improved, and I spend more time with my family.
"If I want to have lunch with my wife, I just go down the hall."
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