Opposed to BRT?

On Saturday an email was sent requesting that people contact members of Provo's City Council to voice their opposition to BRT. Since then I have received around 60 email on the subject. During my three and a half months on the Council, this is by far the most email I have received on any issue. I am grateful that so many people care enough about our community to get involved. I have carefully read and considered each email. Roughly three quarters of the email I have received are from people who reacted to the email by writing to me in opposition to BRT and a quarter of the authors reacted by writing to me in favor of the project.

I do not know who all received the "Opposed to BRT?" email. Some of the respondents identified themselves as Provo residents, others appear to be from Utah County, but not within the City. Not everyone in the City received the email. I did not receive the email. A few people have identified themselves as precinct chairs (I assume of the Republican Party). I do not know how representative of the general population was the distribution list.

Because some of the email I received contained similar misunderstanding, I became concerned about the content of the original email. This morning someone posted a copy of the email on Facebook so I was able to read it for myself. Unfortunately there is a lot of incorrect information in the email. This makes it difficult to know how much weight to give the letters that I have received.I understand that some people have carefully studied this topic, listening to arguments from people on both sides of the issue, and have decided to oppose the project. I understand that position and respect it. But when the authors repeat back the incorrect information from the email, I have to wonder if they would have written to me if they had been given correct information.

I've been asked what I believe is incorrect in the email, so here are my objections:

'In last Wednesday’s Daily Herald, it was reported that “The total cost including matching funds from local and Federal sources is estimated at $190 million.”
What? $190 million? Remember when it was only $150 million?
Who is going to pay the extra $40 million?
Not the County because they have committed only $65 million and not the Federal Government who have committed only $75 million. So that would appear to mean that PROVO and OREM citziens, who were supposed to “only” pay $10 million, will now have to pay that extra $40 million.'

The BRT portion is still projected to cost $150 million (Note that this portion also includes lots of landscaping (including far more trees than we have now), new bike lanes, and other enhancements.) The "extra" $40 million is for the University Parkway widening project that UDOT was independently planning to do. By combining the two projects, money is saved, and construction hassles are reduced.

By the way, the $10 million of the $150 million that isn't federal or county money is being "paid for" by the street right-of-way leases. The only "matching" that the City is doing is in the value of the rights-of-way being leased. Orem's leases also goes into the $10 million, but the lion's share comes from UDOT street leases. University Ave and University Parkway are UDOT roads and UDOT will be leasing the right-of-way (whether we lease our local roads or not, which leads to the next point.)

'We have one last good chance to stop the proposed Bus Rapid Transit project'

Provo's City Council asked the Council Attorney to look into the probable outcome of not authorizing the agreements. The legal opinion is that the BRT project will likely happen anyway, but will perform worse and we would lose out on some of the negotiated enhancements, and would lose our spot at the negotiation table. The email did not discuss the second agreement that is being voted on on Tuesday. This will form a first-of-its-kind governance model for the project where the six partners have an equal voice in decisions. The six partners are Provo, Orem, Utah County, Moutainlands Association of Governments, UTA, and UDOT. Again, each partner has an equal voice.

Many email writers see the vote on Tuesday as a vote on the BRT project. I see it as a vote on how well the project will be implemented and whether we are going to have a voice in the project.

'In this coming Tuesday’s Provo City Council meeting, the City Council will be voting on whether to lease our city property to the UTA for the next 50 years...which will allow UTA to tear up Downtown Provo and our local neighborhoods so they can build their “down the middle of the road” bus lanes and bus stops.'

The language here is fairly imprecise and inflammatory. I don't want to quibble about word selection, but it gave many the wrong impression. We are not leasing our city property to UTA, we are leasing *some* of our city property, specifically space for exclusive lanes on sections of 900 N, 700 N, and 1860 S, and space for 7 stops. It is not a blanket lease for UTA to do whatever with any and all of our city property. Some people took it to mean this. Again, the way the phrase "tear up" is used is inflammatory. Our downtown will not be torn up. Our neighborhoods will not be torn up. University Ave will be torn up, and rebuilt. 700 N will be reconstructed. 900 E will not be. Road construction is never pleasant, but we have lived through it before and we will live through it again, with or without BRT. Many people who wrote me understood the hyperbole, some did not. The lease is for exclusive lanes on the roads listed above and not University Ave. The degree to which our downtown is "torn up" will not be affected by this agreement.

I started this post during my lunch hour but was not able to finish it in time. I have many more thoughts on the topic and the points that were made, both for and against, in the many email that I have received, but I'll save them for another time. I have some other responsibilities to attend to this evening. This post focuses on what I feel is incorrect information in the original "Opposed to BRT?" email.

Just a quick parting thought: As the original email suggested, many of the email writers told me that they would hold me accountable for my vote on Tuesday. I'm not sure if that was intended as a threat or a warning, but it is something that I welcome. Should I decide to run for reelection, I sincerely hope that voters will consider all of my votes. I want to be held accountable for all of my actions on their behalf. If the voters decide that they would rather someone else represent them, then I'll gladly step aside. In the mean time, I will be studying the issues, weighing the arguments, carefully considering public input, and deciding what I think is in the best interest of our beloved Provo. I believe that is what I was elected to do.