Mack Donoghue’s recent letter, “So just stop driving?” offers an entertaining parade of luxury SUVs, ski-laden families and contractors towing trailers. It is also a straw-man argument. Nobody planning the Bobsled Express believes every Deer Valley or Vail Resorts visitor will surrender the keys to a rented Suburban. Nobody expects a plumber to bring tools and materials onto a bus. The project does not require everyone to stop driving. It was never designed around that assumption. The real question is how to move the greatest number of people through a geographically constrained corridor. On S.R. 224, we can continue prioritizing vehicles that typically carry one or two people or dedicate new roadway capacity to buses carrying dozens. In a community that wants continued economic growth and less congestion but has little room for new roads, that is not ideology. It is mathematics. Donoghue asks what taxpayers are purchasing when the routes that will become the Bobsled Express already average approximately 4,700 boardings per day. That is a reasonable question, but he draws the wrong conclusion. Those boardings are not evidence that the project is unnecessary. They demonstrate that substantial transit demand already exists. Thousands of daily trips are being made on buses that currently sit in much of the same traffic as everyone else. For those riders, the project’s immediate benefit is faster, more reliable travel. For the corridor, it is the ability to carry more people without requiring corresponding growth in automobile traffic and parking. A boarding does not equal one car removed, and High Valley Transit should not pretend otherwise. But every transit trip carries a person without requiring another individual vehicle on S.R. 224 or another parking space at the destination. Ridership is not the only measure of success, but it is unquestionably an important one. The $119.2 million estimated cost deserves scrutiny. However, describing this as merely a “really, really good bus lane” obscures the actual project. It includes seven miles of transportation improvements, dedicated and mixed-flow bus lanes, signal priority, new and upgraded stations, a new Canyons Village Transit Center, roadway reconstruction, utility and drainage work, pedestrian improvements and bike lanes. The project has also secured $65.5 million from federal and state sources. The letter correctly notes that work trucks are part of Park City’s economy. No one expects contractors hauling tools and materials to trade their work trucks for buses. But office workers whose daily cargo consists of a laptop and a Stanley tumbler, Mr. Donoghue perhaps included, are exactly the travelers who should give Bob a try and leave more road space for those who genuinely need a truck. What the letter overlooks is the much larger workforce reality. Approximately 70% of the region’s workforce commutes into the area. Park City’s tourism economy depends on thousands of employees who cannot afford to live near the resorts, restaurants and businesses they support. During peak winter periods, transit does not merely provide a pleasant alternative. It transports much of the workforce that allows the resort economy to function. We cannot continually expand recreation, lodging and commercial activity, fail to produce enough housing affordable to the workforce, and then act surprised when transportation demand increases. If our workers must commute, we have an obligation to provide a practical and reliable way for them to do it. That benefits people who continue driving. The dedicated BRT lanes will move High Valley Transit, Park City Transit and school buses out of the general-purpose lanes along the most congested portion of the corridor. Every traveler who chooses transit also represents one less potential vehicle competing for road and parking capacity. Contractors, delivery drivers, residents and visitors who need their vehicles all benefit when others have a credible alternative. A bus passing stopped traffic is not evidence that the bus lane failed. It is the incentive that makes transit competitive. If the bus is trapped in the same congestion as a car, why would anyone with a choice leave the car behind? Bus rapid transit is not an untested theory. Federal Transit Administration research has documented higher ridership, shorter travel times, improved reliability and greater carrying capacity from BRT investments around the country. No project guarantees empty roads, but dismissing BRT because some people will continue driving is like dismissing a road improvement because some motorists will take another route. Donoghue is right about one thing: The public should receive a scoreboard. High Valley Transit and its partners should report transit and general-purpose travel times, schedule reliability, vehicle volumes, ridership, park-and-ride use and estimated changes in single-occupancy trips. The project should be evaluated against the assumptions used to justify it. But the scoreboard must measure the full public benefit, not whether every Mercedes, work truck or vacation rental disappeared from S.R. 224. Donoghue explains why some people will continue driving. What he does not offer is a serious alternative capable of moving thousands of people through the corridor. Another general-purpose lane? Another mountain road? Vast new parking facilities closer to town? Mocking the bus does not make S.R. 224 wider. The Bobsled Express is not telling everyone to stop driving. It is giving thousands of people a practical way to do so and preserving road space for those who cannot. Donoghue says that if the project works, he will buy Bob a beer. Bob does not drink and drive. But if the results prove Mr. Donoghue wrong, I’m sure the operators, mechanics, dispatchers and staff who keep Bob moving would be happy to let Mr. Donoghue buy them lunch.  Brad Herkimer is the chief operations officer of High Valley Transit. The post Mocking the bus doesn’t make S.R. 224 wider appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less