Understanding Our Past
Conference attendees individually listed significant trends, milestones, and events. They placed each of these on a timeline. There were four timelines; global, personal, Wasatch front, and urban mobility. Each timeline spanned from 1960 to 2001.
Attendees were divided into eight groups for discussion.
Group 1 - Personal time line
Events
- "Boomers or causers of boomers" birth, birth of kids
- First home/second home
- First car, first trip, drivers license, foreign travel, relocation
- Marriage, divorce, kids, ed. Milestones, death, military service
- First job, retiremet
Trends
- Three generations
- Children/growth
- Home ownership
- Gain mobility
- Lose mobility
- Mobile society- American
- Movement in and out of state
- Life changes
- Family matters
- Ed. As a means of social mobility
- Jobs are milestones in life
Meaning
- Thread of common experiences (family, jobs, retirement)
- Interconnected, more global society
- Personal, represents individual people
- Stress personal, life experiences not occupations
- Mobility milestones/cycles
Group 2- Global time line
- Increased Environmental Awareness and Reg. Processes
- Cyclical nature of history and events
- Expansion of transportation
- Social change- questions of who we are, how we want to live
- Increasing auto dependence- three car family is the norm
- "Haves" (Industrial Nations) versus "have nots" (Third
World)
- Crisis (Cuba)/Wars (Gulf)
- Political- Kennedy to Bush, Ups and Downs
- Economy- Energy Crisis, recession global, stock market- not just the big
boys
- Innovation- space, medicine, community, transport
- Self contained society to global
- Evolution of Change
- Social issues
- Wars/regional conflictIndividual activism
- World Focus
- Global technology
- Broadened/lengthened our view
- Fed focus on Transportation choices- 1990’s
- Underlying causes
- Economy
- Social causes
- Technology
- Some of these beyond our control
- More responsible, reliable, efficient Trans. Technology haven’t scratched
surface!
- Oil dependant
- Deregulation/regulation airlines, banking, commerce
- America lead out- innovation, consumption
Group 3- Wasatch Front time line
- Increased population/costs
- Social trend
- Significant growth for suburbian expansion
- Lots of development
- Transportation
- Infrastructure
- Public facilities
- Industry/residence
Underlying factors
- Political
- Productivity
- External/geo political
- In-migration
- Economics
- Environmental/quality of life
- Adapting to market forces- created diversified economy
- Population growth and diversity
- Wasatch front is more global
- Geographic restraints
- More growth
- Urbanization with commercial hubs
- More mixed housing
- More congestion
- More mass transit and aviation
Group 4 - Urban Mobility time line
1960’s
- Growth/sprawl to transportation needs, fuel costs rise, grid lock, mass
transit walking
- UTA established 1974- first sales tax
1970’s
- Tax increase failed 1970’s
- City funding liquor tax- creates money= TRAX (cars/buses)
- Public attitude changes
- 1974 oil crisis
- Personal timeline via economics(money/time) local events that affect us
1980’s
- National trend to rail transit helps local solution (cars/buses)
1990’s
- ADA requirements
- Proactive planning for transportation versus reactive on timeline events
still progressing (cars/buses, TRAX)
- Technology, trail system (electronic mail)
2000’s
- Video conferences
- Trend higher density and transit friendly development (Envision Utah) (cars/buses/transportation
systems)
- ADA compliance increasing
- Transportation costs increase and pedestrian unfriendly (more congestion
on roads, complicated intersections, spurs added to transportation systems)
Group 5 - Global and Wasatch Front time line
Political:
- 60’s Money to transportation 90’s local legacy highway
- Suburban expansion
- Growth out paces congestion
- Price of gasoline commodity in real money (except for 1973 oil embargo)
- Disparity between economic groups
- Economic Changes:
- Globalization of economy
- Social attitude toward personal vehicle
- US uses disproportionate money for transit
- Rise in two income families
- Increased use of credit
- Technological Advances:
- Computers
- Cell phones
- Airline technology improvements
- Stock market growth
Globalization:
- Vulnerability to terrorism
- Interdependence
- Effects on Utah Olympics
- Utah becomes microcosm of entire world
- Economy locally is more diverse
Group 6 - Wasatch Front and Urban Mobility
- I-15 is built
- Big cars- big-small-big
- Gas prices- low to high
- SUV’s
- Auto fuel efficiency doubles; however, bus efficiency no double
- Bus reliability poor- 1960’s/1970’s- better in 1980’s and 1990’s
- I-80 built- changed (dramatically) traffic patterns
- Urban Sprawl-
- community
- malls
- cities created
- no new freeways built
- environmental concerns
- 1960’s Salt Palace built- changed downtown SLC
- Watching of air quality standards
- EIS, H2O quality regs. Affected building of freeways, roads
- Air quality improved even though vehicle mileage increased
- MPO’s- given authority, transit planning agency for federal money
- Predicting not always materialized
- Transit taxes- Early 1970’s, failed in 1993, Passed in 2000
- Trend- cooperating transportation, more people at the table
- Connection- urban sprawl, transportation planning
- Gas price-
- TRAX
- Airport Expansion
- Shift from downtown to suburbs
- Economic Exp.
- 1960’s Freeway expanded
- Dev.- expanded expansion into suburbs- gridlock- new interest in mobility
issues, multi-modal approach
Group 7 - Personal, Wasatch Front and Urban Mobility time line
- Reap what we sow in each area
- Growth- Large families, people moving
- Everyone remembers "firsts" in their lives
- Quality of life issues
- Optimism
- Increased awareness of transit overtime
Meanings:
- Services and taxes increased
- Remember what impacts us personally
- ADA laws and requirements passed
- More people are moving- growth and goods
Trends and Events:
- Growing affluence
- Public service
- Projects planned and completed
- Growing awareness of transportation issues
- Increase in cost of living
- Change from rural to urban
- Other cities with employment centers
- Olympics as an event and investment
- Planning in recent years
Factors and Causes:
- Technology advancements
- Economic Prosperity
- Growth in population
- Need for planning
Group 8 - All Four time lines
Personal:
- Positive economic shift between 1960 and 2001
- time commitment change- more time for recreation, more travel to long distances,
for work, family
Trends:
- 1960’s Car was king
- Interstate highway system
- Moving back to public transportation
- Technology advancements have created greater demand for mobility. Also made
the world smaller.
Population growth and urban sprawl:
- Population growth and communication demands, expectation of better quality
of life
- Growth in economy oil
Group Comments
Fact that we do not have option of walking, transportation systems that
allows us to be more mobile, helps community, not able to ride bike safely,
intersections, pedestrian traffic life threatening, need to plan for other modes
of transportation.
Theme, everyone is on the same page, see the same thing and same needs.
Need to stress that the trend towards cars and freeways made the assumption
that everyone could afford a car, and drive by themselves, people in the community
depend on transit. Many people live here who do not have that choice, they cannot
buy a car that is why we need mobility options
You cannot be self-sufficient if you cannot get to a job, see this issue
with single moms. Need to get children to child care before you get to job,
cost is a factor, many women cannot afford personal modes of transportation.
Note an important thing, a positive thing, in last year and a half there
has been a 180 degree shift in community support for more and better transit.
With TRAX there are riders new to transit, we voted last Nov. 58% of Davis county,
Salt Lake and Weber voted to increase their own taxes for more transit. There
has been a significant shift in the population, we need to take note of momentum,
take advantage of this, see a new decade with many challenges we have locally,
nationally and internationally. We must feed this with dollars.
Balance, every system requires this, cities were huge too much for people,
went to suburban lifestyle now we are coming back there has to be some balance
from the way
As we have grown, growth fueled by great economic boom over last 10 years,
Utah has grown within a relatively narrow zone in the population. The growth
will cont. within the Wasatch front, we will likely get what seems to be sprawling
will become more and more dense. Relatively concentrated area is a great opportunity
for
Often find ourselves in ruts, this is the way we have done it for years
and years, true of automobile and mobility, the way we do business, we all drive
home at the same time. Some times of day no problem with transportation, how
do we change the way we do business. We have the technology to drive less, we
have not fully utilized this, interesting to see how all of this plays out.
Market trends are driving issues, government is successful when it responds
to the people. He lives in real world, government needs to respond to market
trends, light rail ridership has trickled down, not exactly successful because
government is trying to drag the population to do something it does not really
want to do, government needs to respond to people or they won’t be successful.
Manage transportation program for aging services, received money through
tax dollars, independence stands out, age 16 first car/license many older adults
cannot make it to bus stop we are helping them maintain their independence,
they have lost drivers license, we help them maintain the independence.
Local and municipal gov. have always wanted to plan within the boundaries
they control. Last decade we have become aware we need regional cooperation
to make roads meet. I know in my county there has been friction, need for planning,
problems in mobility due to lack of planning.
Problem, refusal to look at facts, congestion what is cause, how to manage.
Built freeway sixties, had problems, did not go far enough west and south, we
would not have the congestion we have today if they did. 94% have drivers license,
if we spent money we could have added freeways and avoided the congestion we
have today. West Valley city study difficult to find two people in a car, 50
in a bus let alone 300 in a train. They are saying these things are not working.
Light rail 1/10th of 1% nationally now at the same time when you
have strong ___ for bus the solution is to look at new technologies, new answers
not enforce high taxation trying to squeeze up minute 0.4% will not work.
Older population many have lost driving priviledges need way to get to grocery
store, dr. apts. Baby boomers, he is the cause in a few years first part of
baby boomers will retire, those of you who have no problem driving now may not
be able to later. State of Utah jus passed law at 75 you have to take a drivers
test, and you may not pass it.
