For those Emerald City readers interested in transit alternatives, don't miss tonight's 5:00 p.m. Council work session. Details of this event are disclosed via this morning's Scott Schwebke story, from which we incorporate the lead and closing paragraphs:
"OGDEN — Mayor Matthew Godfrey will present a proposal to the city council tonight detailing eight possible transit corridor destinations that could be linked with the downtown intermodal hub.That's right, folks. Boss Godfrey's crackpot urban gondola scheme remains alive, and will continue to clog council agendas right up until the city hall screen door whacks the anal-retentive little guy in the backside, as he exits the public arena in January.
The presentation may lead to further efforts by the council and administration to prioritize possible corridor destinations to connect with the FrontRunner commuter rail system that will begin operating next year at the intermodal hub.
“The idea is that we want to formulate a plan that the city administration and council are excited about,” said Godfrey.
City Councilwoman Dorrene Jeske said she is hopeful an agreement can be reached to study all modes of mass transit.
Funding for a detailed analysis may come from a $231,250 Federal Transit Administration appropriation awarded to the Utah Transit Authority last year, Godfrey said. ...
"Potential modes of transit along the corridors could include buses, streetcars or an urban gondola." [Emphasis & link added]
And the question occurred to us: so long as the council is still wasting time and money on discussions and studies relating to an urban gondola, (right along with serious public transit alternatives), why shouldn't the council put still another knuckle headed transit idea on the table?
For our readers' enlightenment -- we reprise Ozboy's SASYMASTS public transit system.
OK... Chalk it up to a slow news day.
If anyone amongst our readership decides to attend tonight's work session, we'd love to have you share your notes with us.
Take it away, gentle readers. Feel free, if you like, to treat this as an open-topic thread.
22 comments:
Two things I noticed:
1. No mention of the existing Baker study, which has trod (some of) this ground before, and not that long ago.
2. The dropping of McKay-Dee as a destination.
It's baaaaaack!
I presume the Mayor's proposal should put to rest assumption which some have been making, that the gondola idea died with the park sale idea. Four years after he first floated this turkey of an idea [immediately after he was elected, not having so much as mentioning it during his election campaign], after years of creating division in the city by proposing to sell off the city's parklands to a crony for a real estate development to get part of the money he'd need to build a public flatland gondola, after studies were done looking at the idea as a transit project, and rejecting it in favor or street car or bus rapid transit projects instead, after all that... Mayor Godfrey has come up with a new idea for Ogden transit: a gondola! What a surprise!
After all that, the mayor wants yet another public funded study of his already studied, already found wanting, gondola obsession. Apparently, the idea is to keep convincing the taxpayers... federal, state or municipal, he doesn't really care... to keep on shelling out for gondola study after gondola study until he gets one that comes out the way he wants it to, none of the studies conducted so far having done so. Apparently, he intends to leave no consultant's stone unturned until he finds one that will produce the desired result.
Here's a prediction: if Godfrey is re-elected, four years from now, the SE will be running a story reporting that "Mayor Godfrey tonight will present to the Council a new transit proposal for Ogden which calls for studying all transit options, including a gondola." It will never end as long as he's in office.
And as long as he keeps his gondola obsession alive, Ogden will continue to pass on federal funding to actually begin building the transit options that public-financed studies have already identified as the best and most likely to succeed for Ogden.
It will never end as long as he remains in office. It really is that simple.
Gondolas are good. Gondolas are mass transit. Gondolas will make Ogden the high-adventure recreation capitol of the Universe.
Just lie down next to the pod, Curm. You look tired. You'll feel better in the morning.
The premise behind this presentation is that we've never done any regional transit planning before--all we ever looked at is the single corridor from downtown to WSU and McKay-Dee. It's about time we started looking at the big picture, and the mayor is showing his great vision and foresight by (finally) doing that.
It's all hogwash. The Wasatch-Front Regional Council does a comprehensive study of regional transit needs on a routine basis, every four years. The last cycle ended just last spring. During the process, Godfrey made every attempt to convince the professionals that the downtown-WSU-McKayDee corridor should be demoted in priority and a transit route to Riverdale or Roy and/or a downtown circulator system should be put in its place. This was the point of Godfrey's big dog-and-pony show at Union Station on September 28, 2006. (At that time he showed no interest in reaching a consensus with the City Council--he just launched out on his own.)
Guess what? Despite Godfrey's best efforts, reason prevailed. The professionals calmly insisted that you need to give highest priority to the projects that are most likely to be successful. You don't want to invest a hundred million dollars in a transit system that people won't ride. And furthermore, the feds will not give matching funds to projects that can't demonstrate sufficient ridership potential.
Godfrey is still in total denial over this. When someone makes a decision he doesn't like, he just forges ahead, unhindered. Same as the way he's treating WSU about its decision not to sell the foothill property.
I'm sure that today's presentation will contain a few new twists. Sounds like Godfrey has added a detail here and a detail there. But instead of inventing these proposals from whole cloth, he should be starting with the framework established by WFRC. Unfortunately, Mayor Godfrey is not a team player.
For anyone not questioning the sincerity of lying little matty at this point, you are a bunch of geigers. ( the nastiest insult that can be hurled in these parts).
I attended the council work session a few weeks ago, lying little matty was on top of his game enough to lure the Council into thinking he was sincere about coming together on transit. His demeaner was somewhat changed and had an effect on some of them, he lured them into forgetting all the ground that has all ready been covered and decieved them into feeling that in the interest of unifying they should invent the wheel all over again.
There was not much mention of gondolas, hardly a reference. He talked up street cars, in a very positive manner.
What he succeeded in doing was leading them into a new discussion on corridors, allowing their own input to cloud rationallity and dismisal of the experts conclussions.
Doug Stevens bought in, hook line and sinker. While the mayor was suggesting a little downtown loop, Stevens suggested continuing over to the Newgate Mall. Now Stevens has felt he's done two things that have been a positive contribution to the issue. It's his idea, and he has moved off what the mayor called an uncompromizing position.
Forget potential ridership studies and any other facts and conclussions reached by the experts, professionals in mass transit. Though well intentioed, Mr. Stevens has been a victim of manipulation. At the recent debate, lying little matty used this example, plcing emphasis on his own willingness to compromize. What? He has once again succeded in stalling and delaying the city's transit needs, and for what, his obsession with an URBAN GONDOLA.
Mr. Stevens, please ponder, where are the riders for your suggestion going to come from. They'll have to drive their cars from their homes to some huge parking lot somewhere and then elect to take mass transit to some other location. What is the likelyhood of that?
Ogden must rid itself of this lying little gondola worshipping deviant.
Rudi
I am highly offended that you would be so arrogant and calloused as to insinuate that the very brilliant SASYMAST proposal is in the same league as this totally and completely foolish Gondola idea!
It is obvious to me that you only want to obstruct true innovation and scientific progress here in the land of Oz by your continued attempts to denigrate the brilliant SASYMAST concept and drag it down into the gutter with comparisons to your Gondola obsession.
Gondolas - No
Sling and Slide Mass transit - yes
I am howdy duty certain that the SASYMAST methods will not only be adopted in Emerald City, but will be a world wide craze withing just a few short years. After all, this incredible idea came to our Mayor PeeWee in one of his now famous mushroom dreams that have been the source of all that is good and brilliant in the land of Oz.
Oz Boy, are you insinuating that what's good in Ogden is result of, SPORES and WHORES?
P&G settles on BE site - Paper products giant to build 500-acre manufacturing plant
Two other items of interest in today's SE. The first out of Davis County, where the "Davis School District will forego $9.26 million in property tax increments in making the East Gate economic development project in Layton a reality."
Apparently, Davis County has some concerned citizens who are asking questions about the wisdom of the tax give-away. [In Ogden, Mayor Godfrey and his Lift Ogden acolytes call such concerned citizens "naysayers."]
"Diverting those kind of tax dollars from public education to a private commercial development for infrastructure concerns some county residents where the district is often short on funds.... In the current tax climate, any tax dollars given away can place an additional burden on taxpayers, particularly those who are on fixed incomes, [Kaysville resident Bill] Burns said."
Imagine that. Davis Co. taxpayers thinking giving millions of dollars of school taxes over decades away to private developers might not be in the public interest. And how have Davis School District officials responded?
"District officials defend their decision to give the 650-acre industrial park its financial support."
Of course.
The full story appears in the SE's online Mid-day Update.
Second story of interest heads the first page of the Top of Utah section. Here are some of the high points:
OGDEN — USA Cycling, the governing body for Olympic cycling sports, is considering Ogden as a new home. The 48-employee organization may be displaced from its current home in Colorado Springs, Colo., if the U.S. Olympic Committee decides to tear down the aging Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs....
USA Cycling Chief Executive Offi - cer Steve Johnson said Wednesday the organization has narrowed its choices to two possibilities, including Ogden. He declined to identify the other city. Johnson said he spent two days in Ogden recently, meeting with Mayor Matthew Godfrey and Mike Dowse, president of Amer Sports....
Johnson said he saw “the initial sense of a possible fit” during his visit. “(We) are very impressed with Ogden,” Johnson said. “Ogden presents lots of opportunities for bike racing.” The AmeriCan Center in downtown Ogden is being considered as a possible location. USA Cycling plans to make a decision by the end of the year, according to Johnson.
This would be a good thing if it happens. Kudos to Mayor Godfrey and his staff for pursuing it, and for Mr. Dowse of Amer Sports to pitching in for his company's new home town. [If only the Mayor had spent the last four years concentrating on matters like this instead of devoting so much time and so much effort to finding ways to sell the city's parklands to his cronies for real estate development so he could build his gondola fantasy, he'd be in a lot less trouble with the voters than he is. And alas, the headline story in the SE today makes it painfully plain that the Mayor has no intention, if re-elected, of giving up on his urban gondola fantasies.]
The full story the possible US Cycling move can be found here.
Re the SASYMAST: Brilliant! When several coworkers and I decided that an urban gondola to WSU should include plans for a corresponding log flume for the trip down, I had no idea this system had already been discussed, with a far superior uphill transit option!
JP:
The office I used to work in (you know the one) has discussed The Human Cannonball as a model for the uphill part.
With a little rangefinding and modern computer technology, we can easily correct for wind conditions and different weights, and get people to the top of Mt. Ogden superfast.
Just because the furthest we've done this is 56 m, and we need to move people about 100 times that distance, should be no problem, just like having two 90 degree turns will be no problem for the urban (dare I say, urbane?) gondola system.
I think we should insist that the City Council include SASYMAST, the Human Cannonball, and the log flume as options at tonight's meeting -- as long as someone else is footing the $231K bill for the feasibility study.
While I agree that the Human Cannon Ball would be superior to the Gondola as mass transit, I believe the major deficiency in this transit system would be the far fewer employees it would utilize and also the time constraints inherent in such a system for loading passengers down the barrel.
Normally having fewer employees would be desireable. However, as you know, one of the beauties of the SASYMAST system would be the number of minorities we would hire to load the passengers in the large leather launching pads and pulling the passenger back the proper distance for an accurate launch. This becomes important when you consider the number of minorities we will need as test subjects during the arduous calibration phase where we expect quite a few casualties. We cannot expect minority participation at this testing phase unless we can promise a lot of jobs on an ongoing basis.
While the Human Cannon Ball idea has a lot of merit, I think the sling shot approach has centuries of everyday use behind it that proves the concept.
In summary, I just can't see loading grandma into a cannon, whereas wrapping her in a large leather pouch and just flipping her to the top of Mt. Ogden would be much quicker and less traumatic.
Rudi:
Utes: 17. Horned Frogs: 14.
About three minutes left 'till half.
THE SKI IS BEAUTIFUL BLUE
Geiger, Geiger, Geiger, Geiger, Geiger, Geiger, Geiger, Geiger...
Ozboy:
Now this is why we need to spend $231K of the taxpayer's money to investigate these various exciting, high-adventure alternatives.
See, in my mind, we could have thousands of underemployed persons who live at the top of Mt. Ogden, in a cute little Tyrolean village that we'll build there*.
The only drawback to the human cannonball, according to Cecil Adams, is that sometimes people land off-target. If you don't land in the airbag, it can ruin your whole day. These underpaid yet still employed former gang-bangers can be employed as spotters (watching for incoming through binoculars) and airbag positioners to fine-tune the system so that people will land softly.
This means that they will be out of Ogden, so even if they re-activate their ancient rivalries, the resulting murders won't show up on the Ogden crime statistics. Ogden will be safer, gang members will be gainfully employed, and we'll have a really cool (did I mention high-adventure) system that high-adventure people can use while pursuing their high-adventure sports up on the high-adventure Mecca known as Mt. Ogden.
In fact, I'm negotiating the naming rights to Mt. Ogden right now. We're going to call it Mt. Salomon. Sure, we are giving away the naming rights for free, and getting nothing in return, but it's a small price to pay for attracting this high-adventure company to our high-adventure city.
Since the mountain will change its name, we're giving away the naming rights to the city as well. Welcome to the new Salomon High Adventure City, where Matthew Godfrey is CEO for Life.
* With US Forest Service approval.
Monotreme
While I do not want to denigrate your human cannon ball approach to solving Ogden's mass transit problems, I would point out that it would be impractical to use springs for propulsion. On the other hand the use of compressed air may result in a high cost involved with the motors and compressors that would be necessary.
Perhaps one solution to this draw back would be to enlist former Mayor Godfrey, his failed "A" team, and in fact all Utah politicians into a program where their considerable wind could be collected and used for propulsion. I know this would be a huge amount of blowing hot air, but perhaps the excess could be used to blow the smog out of the valley on those hard to see your nose days we have here abouts in the winter months. In the summer the excess wind could be used for a valley wide breeze. We would of course have to put some odor filters in to get rid of the pesky onion smells that some find so offensive.
Just thoughts at this time. I am hopeful that all the studying necessary to sort this out will not end up costing more than the bus we were supposed to get for the quarter of million in tax payer funds that will now be used for said study.
Again, please don't get me wrong, I do very much appreciate your human cannon ball approach, but I believe that the Sling and Slide method will prove to be the superior system in solving Ogden's transportation needs into the future. I do think however that your HCB idea could work, and in any event would be far superior to the ill conceived Gondola concept.
Ozboy:
All this discussion puts me in mind of a third option, the "Pull My Finger" system.
Rudi:
Yeah, I'm sure you know: Utes win; this team is as bipolar as Short-deck Geiger. How in the holy Geiger did we get blanked by UNLV?
THE SKI IS BEAUTIFUL BLUE
Geiger, Geiger, Geiger, Geiger, Geiger, Geiger, Geiger...
We need "LESS GOVERNMENT" so we can build a gondola.
Yeah, Jason. I caught last night's game too. The Ute defense looked pretty good, with the exception of those incessant rookie-style "arm-tackles."
And the offense still needs lots of work.
Still.... GO UTES!
Jason and Rudi
Just wait till your red men meet up with the white boys from Blue Yu.
Gonna be another regular genocide!
Transit Corridors...
Hub to Newgate-
who the hell lives on this corridor? carlots and harlots. Let's see, SLC residents will ride the Frontrunner to Ogden hub and get off to ride a few miles back south to shop at Newgate despite the fact they passed on shopping in several beautiful SLC area malls and Layton Hills to name a few. They must be mall nutty in SLC. Or even this scenario...Logan residents will drive to Pleasant View, hop the Frontrunner to Ogden Hub and ride streetcar to Newgate passing on the opportunity to drive a few short minutes to 31st st and south to Newgate retaining their cars close for packages. Godfrey is in dreamland.
Park n' Ride in Ogden Canyon-
Ah yes, a parking lot in the Canyon. A novel idea. Don't Ogden Valley comuters have Trappers Loop to speed the commute to SLC for the few valley commuters.
Cross county corridor-
Redundancy at it's finest. We have I-15, soon we'll have the Frontrunner giving us two speedy N-S routes. Lets build a pokey streetcar line from Riverdale to North Ogden. That'll get these pesky county residents onboard the gondola plan.
Ogden Hinckley Airport-
More redundancy. Now there is a commuter hub just waiting to be tapped. Forget that SLC INTL is a half hour away and can connect you to the world.
BDO-
Hey, another novelty. How many commuters are coming from the south to BDO. Not many, I'd guess. Better build this line so we can encourage more SLC and Davis residents to seek employment at the SE or warehouse jobs at Rossignol. I guess they are short of qualified local applicants. Good reason to invest in transit infrastructure.
WSU corridor-
The nonsense never stops. Lets underestimate the importance of this corridor by tossing out a bunch of bones for the public to chomp on. Of course this corridor would pass right through Ogden's central residential area providing intra-city transit for those who live here and linking us to SLC via Frontrunner. Who would think of such a nonsense idea...THE FRIGGIN' PROFESSIONALS, MATT.
Screw you, Godfrey for setting back Ogden's transit initiatives and growth opportunities for another couple of decades. Lets recruit a few more lightweight companies as that is all that would consider moving to such a humble backwater.
Couple of recent trips,
flew SW to Burbank and rode the Ventura County Metrolink line north. I chose to fly to Burbank based on the availability of a N/S flight and transit link to Montalvo(Ventura)Cost 10.00 to ride the 60 miles. This train hauls ass.
flew SW to Bay Area... chose Oakland as destination for the N/S flight(no N/S flight to SFO) rode the BART to the city in less than half hour I am emerging onto Market St. from the train. So many transit options in SF. These are world class destinations that benefit from a comprehensive transit infrastructure. Let's get on board. Cost 3.85 to ride BART from OAK to Embarcadero.
I now will chose destinations and itineraries based on transit options. I think more than a few others do the same. Want to make Ogden a destination, Matt? Get the streetcar built to WSU.
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