At around 6:30 on a warm August morning, Marlene Ross stood at her bus stop at 600 North and 1400 West on Salt Lake City’s west side. As the sun came up, Ross waited to catch a ride to work. She’s 69 years old — a small woman with a very big smile that she puts to good use as a greeter at the downtown Walmart.
She’s been catching the 205 bus here for the past year and said she would welcome a bench to sit on while she waits.
“Like me, I’m old and sometimes the buses are late and you’re standing here, especially in the wintertime, you know it’s hard to stand in the snow,” she said. “We should have benches.”
She was surprised to learn that the Utah Transit Authority had promised the Rose Park Community Council in January to put in 30 benches on the west side — including at Ross’ stop.
“They put benches over by Smith’s. Why not here?” she asked.
Kevin Parke, chair of the Rose Park Community Council said that what’s an inconvenience for some can be a hardship for the elderly and disabled.
“We have worse health outcomes on the west side than anywhere else in the city and less access to health care, so it’s a struggle for people to not be able to just sit and wait for the bus.”
The Utah Investigative Journalism Project examined west-side bus stops and found that UTA had only installed nine of those 30 benches. Overall, reporters found most bus stops on major routes in the city lacked benches.
The team physically inspected 434 stops along major Salt Lake City routes, as well as two of the largest routes running south from the city through Salt Lake County. Of all the stops, less than a third had benches. Five percent had microbenches known as “Simme seats” installed into bus stop signs. They allow one or two people to sit but without a backrest. There were shelters at 22% of the stops and trash cans at 29%.
UTA spokesman Gavin Gustafson said picking which bus stops get benches and shelters is not an easy task. UTA employs a Master Plan and follows a special decision matrix to decide what stops should get what amenities. He said it’s a fair and rigorous system, but ultimately it does come down to money.
“If the question is, why doesn’t every stop have a bench?” then the simple answer, he said, is that “it’s expensive.”
But he said the answer to why a major route running from west to east has more benches and shelters on the east side is more complicated.
“A double-edged sword”
The Utah Investigative Journalism Project limited its analysis to routes that were only contained within Salt Lake City — 1, 9, 551 and F11 — and two of the busiest routes connecting the city and the rest of the county — 200 and 217.
The stops on the routes were primarily based on the west side of the city and county, either heading south and north on State Street or streets west of it.
But Route 1, which starts on Redwood Road and moves through Rose Park before heading east up to The University of Utah Hospital is like a tale of two cities.
On the west side, 71% of the stops lack a bench or shelter. On the east side — only 39% of the stops lack these amenities. One of the west-side stops appears to have a makeshift bench from wooden logs — presumably put there by riders. At one stop along 900 West, someone had set a cinder block as an impromptu stool. But climbing east up toward the U, multiple stops feature clean, gleaming shelters and benches.
Bryan Hope works in patient transport at The University of Utah Hospital and catches the bus on the 1 Route along 1000 North. He said a shelter would come in handy for him and others heading up to work.
“Not too long ago it was raining, it was pouring and I didn’t check the weather before I came out and it was a nice six or seven minutes that I was out here getting drenched,” Hope said.
Not every route reflects the same east/west divide though. Route 9, for example, has a more equal mix of benches along the route, and the east side Avenues F11 route has few benches.
UTA’s Gustafson said Route 1 was modified in the last couple of years, and UTA is now evaluating what amenity upgrades are needed.
Even simple upgrades can add up to significant amounts. The Bus Stop Master Plan, for example, shows the cost of a brand-new stop can range from $6,181 to more than $50,000, depending on infrastructure. Most bus stops would fall in the $6,000-$18,000 range.
Overall, he said that by federal law one neighborhood may not be favored over another. Instead, UTA has to weigh key objective factors.
He noted UTA’s decision matrix prioritizes benches, shelters and other amenities based on factors such as wait times and average daily boardings. If the average wait time at a stop is longer than 15 minutes then benches will be prioritized. It also comes down to whether a stop gets more than 10 average boardings a day, in which case it should receive a bench and a trash can.
Another factor can trump even these considerations:
“Anything that is not yet ADA compliant, that’s going to go to the top of the priority list,” Gustafson said.
The Americans with Disabilities Act requires stops to have a concrete pad and easy access for a wheelchair.
Besides installation there’s also ongoing maintenance, which Gustafson noted can be expensive. “Frankly, there's vandalism, there's, you know, all kinds of issues that come into maintaining a stop, even the simplest of stops.”
Councilwoman Victoria Petro represents Salt Lake City’s District 1 west of I-15 and north of I-80. She does believe there should be more benches and shelters in her area but also worries about homeless individuals taking advantage of the benches and shelters.
“Everything on the west side is a double-edged sword, right?” Petro said. “It’s a resource that we need and one that could be misused. Should we implement it because of the other vulnerabilities our community faces?”
Ultimately though, she believes the pros outweigh the cons.
“Every time I’m driving down 1000 North there’s a mom there with her two kids and a stroller. Like, she deserves a little shade while she’s waiting,” Petro said.
“I refuse to believe that the west side deserves anything less than what can be done for them.”
Gustafson said that UTA recognizes this and notes that another factor influencing where benches go is where people speak up. UTA’s customer service department is responsive to citizen concerns and will prioritize upgrades when a community demands them — even if the stop isn’t prioritized under the decision matrix.
“Absolutely, that does happen and that’s in large part what the customer service department is for,” Gustafson said.
While it does happen, however, it doesn’t always happen very fast.
“… that list is long”
UTA provided The Utah Investigative Journalism Project an email sent on Jan. 4, 2024, from the customer service department to the Rose Park Community Council as an example of west-side stops receiving improvements.
The email notified the council of plans to install 30 benches, along with other amenities like shelters and trash cans.
“Unfortunately, I don’t have an exact timeline for this, but we are hoping they’ll arrive within the next couple of months,” UTA wrote.
Seven months later, only nine of the benches promised had been installed and only six of the stops were provided with all of the amenities outlined in the email. Gustafson said the upgrades are still being planned.
“The simple answer is that all of these stops are high on our to-do list, but that list is long,” Gustafson wrote in an email.
UTA announced upgrades to 24 bus stops in the Avenues neighborhood between May and August. Gustafson said the majority were for ADA compliance. But, Route 551 on the west side has 19 bus stops in the International Center and only one stop, outside the Amazon fulfillment center, appears to be ADA compliant. The other stops lacked not just benches and shelters but also concrete pads for wheelchair service.
Gustafson said even the ADA upgrades needed – like those on Route 551 – can be disrupted by more pressing safety needs.
“Overall safety is always the highest priority,” Gustafson said. “So, if a TRAX rail is damaged, for example, the construction team could be pulled away from a bus stop project.”
Parke, the community council chair, said getting more benches and shelters is like getting any resources for the west side — a struggle.
“It feels like you have to fight a little harder on the west side for things.”
He commutes to Sugar House and has also noticed the disparity in bus stops along the way.
“As I was coming home Saturday night I noticed a man who was probably in his late 50s, early 60s, just sitting on the cement because there were no benches,” Parke said.
In recent years he’s seen a few added in Rose Park — including the small Simme seats.
“But by and large, we don’t have a lot of benches and some of the benches we do have, as a member of our community pointed out, have dividers on them so that if someone is on the heavier side they may not fit on the bench.”
He said UTA has made progress in recent years. He’s glad more bus routes have been added to the west side, but he’s still frustrated by the slow pace of upgrades in his neighborhood.
“The west side gets a bad rap, and this is my soapbox,” Parke said.
“It’s a tight-knit community, there’s lots of diversity and lots of just amazing people, and I think we’re overlooked a lot with a lot of the amenities that other areas have. I think there’s a perception that there’s a super-high crime rate and that we just don’t take care of the things that we’re given and that’s just not the case.
“We have our problems like everyone else, homeless issues, crime, but it’s a good place to live and we deserve to be treated and respected, just like every other community.”
