Getting to work from Davis to Ogden via FrontRunner and the bus
Text 
By DON PORTER
Editorial Page Editor
dporter@standard.net
We journalists have a well-deserved reputation for being contrarians. We are, after all, professional skeptics.
So it figures, somehow, that with the initial hoopla over FrontRunner subsiding, yours truly decided to jump in behind the curve. I live in northwestern Davis County, and I've seen all the cars parked in the commuter-rail lots in Clearfield and Roy as I drive to work in Ogden. So, since all those people are traveling south every morning, I decided to see if public transit headed north was a viable option.
Gasoline is on its way toward four bucks per gallon, and I drive a mid-size pickup that gets 19 miles per gallon no matter how I drive it. My round-trip commute each day to Business Depot Ogden is 32 miles -- give or take a mile depending on whether I take I-15, Midland Drive or another variation on one of those routes.
That means at $3.50 per gallon, I'm paying about $30 per week in gasoline -- not counting wear and tear, oil changes and other mileage-based maintenance. So I was wondering if it would make sense for me to take the bus or a combination of bus and FrontRunner.
I knew going in that I would be sacrificing time to hop aboard public transit. It takes me an average of 30 minutes each way, each day to drive my truck -- which, by the way, I'm not giving up because 1) it's paid off, and 2) I use its hauling capability all the time. But based on past experiences with trying to schedule a daily bus ride into work and back, I knew a bus-only route was out of the question; the best schedule I could get for driving my vehicle the shortest distance from my home -- 20 blocks to the nearest stop it delivered me to a route that did me no good; a 30-block drive, however, got me to a useful route -- added 98 minutes to my 30-minute morning commute, and 66 minutes to my 30-minute afternoon drive home. (This is all dependent on the times buses run through Business Depot Ogden, though, which I'll get to later.)
So, with a little trial and error, I landed on the following plan:
* Leave home at 6:35 a.m., park and catch a bus at about 6:47 a.m., and ride it to the Clearfield FrontRunner station, arriving at 7:03 a.m.
* This is where it gets dicey. FrontRunner, when it's running on time -- which it was, two out of three days I rode it to work; but one day it was 14 minutes late -- leaves the Clearfield station at 7:07 a.m. That four-minute window is a narrow one, and depends on the bus being right on time and no one in line in front of me to buy a train ticket.
* I'd buy the FrontRunner fare between Clearfield and Ogden ($1.25, with credit given for my already-purchased $1.75 bus fare, for a total of $3; but smart people go ahead and buy the round trip fare for $6, which includes all bus transfers for the day), and arrive in Ogden at 7:23 a.m.
* Then I'd twiddle my thumbs -- or read a newspaper or tap on my laptop -- for 32 minutes until the Route No. 613 bus leaves the Ogden Intermodal Transportation Hub at 7:55 a.m.
* I would finally arrive outside my office at 8:08 a.m. But I could have arrived 30 minutes earlier if the No. 613 bus ran through BDO on each trip. It does not. Slightly less than 3,000 employees work in BDO -- the number will be 4,000 by the end of 2008. The No. 613 bus runs 22 times to and from the Weber Industrial Park, Internal Revenue Service and other stops along the way every weekday. But it runs only seven times a day to BDO from Ogden's central station, and eight times a day headed back to downtown Ogden. This made my morning commute inconvenient because I could have walked off FrontRunner and right onto the 6:30 a.m. No. 613 bus heading to BDO -- if it stopped at BDO instead of passing it up. And for my afternoon commute, the latest the No. 613 bus travels through BDO heading back to the train station is 5:18 p.m.
For those of us who work in BDO, it's inconvenient. If UTA ever decides to include BDO in the complete Route No. 613 schedule, I'll be a regular commuter, since it would add only 40 minutes to my total morning commute. (UTA says the route averages 369 boardings per weekday, and only 32 of those people travel to BDO. If it was included on the full schedule, I believe many more people would take advantage.)
As for the return trip, it's fine now, except I have to end my workday by 5:10 p.m. in order to get to the bus stop. The bus-train-bus trip home adds only 40 minutes to my current commute.
In the final analysis, both of my bus rides are blessedly brief. FrontRunner is comfortable and fast. The only complaints I have are the schedule deficiencies that force me to sit for 30 minutes at the Ogden station and leave the office earlier than usual in the afternoon.
(I could, in fact, get around the lack of BDO service by hauling a bicycle with me to work and cycling between the office and 12th Street, but I don't want to do that. Besides, one of the UTA station hosts told me so many people are bringing bicycles onto FrontRunner, that sometimes they have trouble accommodating them and cyclists have actually had to wait for the next train; this was rare, he said, but had happened.)
* That's my experience. What's yours been like? I'd like to hear from you, whether you're traveling north, south, east or west on buses or the train. Let me know what you like, what you don't like and where UTA is succeeding or failing. I'll publish your responses -- in the print edition and/or online, depending on how many of you reply.
Porter is the Standard-Examiner's editorial page editor. E-mail him at dporter@standard.net.
Reader Comments
I applaud the efforts of UTA to provide mass transit. That said, it falls well short of something I could call useful. Even with a pass provided by my employer, the round trip from South Ogden to SLC adds almost 3 hours onto an already long day.
When Front Runner was initially pitched it was for train speeds of 79 mph. In fact there is only a short stretch that ever gets up to that speed. The rest of the time is spent at much lower speeds. Even on the high speed leg I-15 rush hour traffic is generally much faster.
I really look forward to riding the train more, but the overall speed has got to increase.
I drive 90 miles round trip every day, from South Ogden to South Jordan. It would take well over 2 hours if I rode UTA and the only bus that goes near my work stops running before I can get there. Wish they'd hurry on the southern extension....
I work near Redwood and N Temple. I catch an express bus (456) in Kaysville and it goes right to my office with few stops in between. I loose 15 minutes per trip (but I sleep on the way to work and read on the way home so the value of the time is not that significant of a loss). Problem is if traffic is bad, I loose time.
If I take FrontRunner, I leave home 15 minutes earlier and get to work 30 minutes later, most of that time waiting for a bus at the Salt Lake Intermodal hub that gets me the final mile or so of the commute. I have an annual pas provided by my employer so the cost is cheap but agree that they need to make schedule time match better.